


Bridges to Burn, Places to Run

by uisceB



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mob, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Bending (Avatar TV), Angst and Humor, Azula said be gay do crime, Bisexual Sokka (Avatar), Bisexual Suki (Avatar), Bodyguard Romance, Brief Torture, Explicit Sexual Content, F/F, Gay Zuko (Avatar), Lesbian Azula (Avatar), Romance, Zuko (Avatar) is a Good Brother, but Azula is Trying His Patience, the Gaang said Azula no stop setting things on fire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-22
Updated: 2021-01-05
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:40:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 26
Words: 136,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26048158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uisceB/pseuds/uisceB
Summary: When Suki first joined Avatar Security Agency, she’d been under the impression she’d be taking on assignments protecting the innocent, the gentle, and those otherwise incapable of protecting themselves.But when Ozai Sozin—aka the Phoenix Kingpin, Firelord of Crime—is arrested and his criminal empire begins to crumble, Suki is assigned to take Ozai’s daughter, Azula, to a safe house to protect her from the warring crime families vying to take his place.To make things more complicated, the 23-year-old protégé and heir-apparent to the Fire Clan has no interest in being protected. She’d much rather take up her father’s mantle as Republic City’s new reigning crime lord, and minor bumps in the road like abduction, attempted assassinations, an overprotective big brother, and being trapped in a safe house with an uptight, very sexy bodyguard are not going to stop her.
Relationships: Azula/Suki (Avatar), Background Sokka/Zuko, Past Azula/Ty Lee, Past Sokka/Suki
Comments: 720
Kudos: 824





	1. Chapter 1

When Suki first joined Avatar Security Agency three years ago, she’d been under the impression she’d be tasked with protecting the innocent, the gentle, and those otherwise incapable of protecting themselves.

The Agency is an honorable one, after all, privately-owned, discrete, and aimed to serve those who can’t typically afford such protection on their own. Frequently providing pro bono services, with a clear, quiet, no-nonsense focus on keeping the victims out of the hands of assassins, mobsters, abusers, and well out of the path of untrustworthy law enforcement, Avatar Security is unique in its ability to walk a line within the realm of legal, while remaining independent from government oversight.

Zuko, the organization’s co-founder, is nothing short of a genius for the way he’s been able to keep them all aloft on that precarious tightrope with all the uncanny grace and wily balance of an alley cat.

That said, it’s everything Suki could have wanted in a job, and she joined Avatar Security right out of college, hopeful and determined, with thoughts of lifting up and protecting victims of the city’s most corrupt politicians, moguls, and crime lords.

Needless to say she’s more than a little baffled this particular Friday morning to find that her newest assignment is not the victim of a notorious crime lord. In fact, her newest assignment is the _daughter_ of a notorious crime lord—quite possibly _the_ most notorious crime lord at present, formally and pretentiously referred to as the Phoenix Kingpin, Firelord of Crime.

Well. Formerly. As of three days ago, the Firelord of Crime was taken down in a meticulously-plotted, and unexpectedly explosive sting, confirming decades’ long suspicions of his true identity as the extravagantly wealthy, highly respected business mogul, Ozai Sozin.

Suki would be a little more understanding of her assignment if the daughter she is to be looking after was a victim of Ozai’s as well, but it states in clear black and white, right there in the first line of this girl’s file, that Azula Sozin is not only Ozai’s offspring, but also his protégé, and therefore likely successor to the criminal empire he has spent the last 50 years building.

Essentially, the 23-year-old heir-apparent to one of the most feared men in Republic City is not the type of person Suki would consider to be the typical fare for Avatar Security’s services.

“You look like you have some questions,” Zuko observes as Suki marches into his office and tosses the file he deposited on her desk right back onto his.

“It’s mostly just the one question,” Suki says sharply, perching herself on the chair opposite him. “In a word… _why?”_

“In a word? Sister,” Zuko answers, placing his fingers on the file and drawing it toward himself gingerly, like it’s something both fragile and deadly. Like putting too much pressure on it has a fifty-fifty chance of either shattering it, or detonating it.

Suki looks at him critically for a long moment, trying to work that one out. “Okay, I’m gonna need a little more information,” she says guardedly.

Zuko gives out a long-suffering sigh. He’s good at those. In fact, Zuko _excels_ at the tormented looks, and he makes those tormented looks look good. He’s not fantastic with the people skills—hence his teaming-up with the Agency’s other, more personable co-founder, Aang—but he’s brilliant when it comes to the business side of things. And he wears torment well. _Really_ well. To an almost absurdly attractive point.

Honestly, Suki would have been all over him if only her best-friend-turned-boyfriend-turned-best-friend-again hadn’t snapped Zuko up first.

Sokka is one lucky son of a bitch.

But that aside, Zuko does look particularly broody at the moment with his gaze fixed on the file in front of him, expression darkened further by the scar over his left eye.

“The girl you’re going to be looking after is my little sister,” he tells her, finally locking eyes with her.

Suki chews on her lower lip, slowly adding one and one. And then one and one again. And then again.

When she finally has all her numbers in a row, she’s left with a sort of singular feeling, best described as: _Oh, shit._

Zuko has always been a mystery—to Suki, to the rest of the Avatar Security team, even to Sokka to some extent. It was always a joke before; Suki and her coworkers have frequently made a game of trying to guess the source of Zuko’s broody demeanor whenever there’s downtime, or at game nights or parties. A _checkered past_ is the most frequent theory among them, and Suki has tried on occasion to get Sokka to let something slip if they’ve had enough to drink and she’s feeling mischievous. Sokka always laughingly waves her off, and admits that even _he_ doesn’t know the full extent of Zuko’s secrets, so Suki and the rest of the team have always been left with wild and increasingly absurd theories.

To name a few: Zuko is a vampire. Zuko is a werewolf. Zuko was a theater kid in high school. Zuko is a fallen angel trying to make up for past sins. Zuko is an alien trying to learn the ways of humans and protect them from themselves. Zuko is a genius with too much time on his hands. Zuko is a _moron_ with too much time on his hands. Zuko is an empath _._ Zuko is a time-traveler. Zuko was raised by a family of ill-tempered feral cats. Zuko is a secret cross-dresser.

(That last one doesn’t really have anything to do with anything else, but everyone at Avatar Security has collectively agreed that with those legs, Zuko wouldn’t look half-bad in a dress and high heels).

Interestingly enough, _Zuko is the son of the Phoenix Kingpin, Firelord of Crime_ is not a theory Suki and her cohorts have come up with yet. Very possibly because Zuko has always neglected to mention a surname, leading to their other theory that he has aspirations of becoming a single-name pop star.

Zuko glances at the door with a flash of his striking amber eyes, seeming to be confirming that it is indeed closed, then folds his hands in front of him on the desk, fixing Suki with one of his most penetrating stares.

He’s really good at those, too.

“My relation to Ozai Sozin is not to be repeated to anyone, of course,” he tells her sternly.

“Of course.”

“This assignment isn’t about me,” Zuko goes on. “I need to make that clear. This is about protecting a young woman who is currently in the greatest danger of her life.” He taps his fingers agitatedly. “My f—Ozai Sozin…was arrested three nights ago. After years of…” He trails off, seeming to swallow down a complex lump of…something. Some tangle of emotion and thought that seems to make him profoundly ill at ease.

“Ozai’s absence is going to create a vacuum in the political layout of Republic City’s underworld,” he continues once he gathers himself. “Not just within the Fire Clan—crime bosses from Earth, Air, and Water territories will be trying to dismantle and absorb his empire into their own. Every criminal with an ounce of power is going to be clambering for Ozai’s seat, trying to gain monopoly over this city. We’re talking all-out criminal warfare. Even more so than we’ve been seeing for the past couple months.”

He sighs and rubs his fingers at his temples. “And my sister,” he continues wearily, “as the only heir to Ozai’s legacy, is the main obstacle to that overturn of power. She’s young, she’s a girl…she’s regarded as a legitimate threat, but a threat my father’s enemies will consider a relatively easy target, especially without his protection. With Ozai out of the picture, my sister is going to be the prime target for every power-hungry lowlife in this city’s underbelly. Whoever gets to her first will increase their chance of making a name for themselves and securing their place as the new Republic City kingpin. She’s…at this moment…the most vulnerable person in the entire city.”

This may be the longest assortment of words Suki has ever heard Zuko put together at one time. She exhales slowly.

“Okay,” she says. “So. You want me to protect your little sister. Who’s also the heir to a criminal empire.” She lifts her shoulders tightly. “You don’t want to maybe, I don’t know, try to turn her in as well?”

Zuko’s eyes flash. “Right, because the cops in this city are so trustworthy,” he says darkly. “If it comes down to it, we may have to turn her in, but it’ll be done through the proper channels, with the proper legal process, and with me watching the whole thing like a hawk, not just throwing her to the hounds and hoping for the best.”

Suki drops her gaze, jaw tightening against memories she’d rather not dwell on. “Right,” she says.

“My father’s arrest came at the hands of men and women greater than the local grunts who act like they’re immortal hot shit,” Zuko says. “And even if it did come at the hands of the most corrupt pig in Republic City, it would still be well-deserved. My father is a monster, and should be treated as such. Azula didn’t ask for…didn’t ask to become what he made her become. She deserves a chance.”

Suki bites her lip. “So she’s… _sort of_ innocent,” she says, trying to justify Zuko’s decision as best she can to herself so that this assignment doesn’t feel quite as foolhardy as it sounds.

“Well she’s…I mean, she’s more innocent than _Ozai,”_ Zuko says. “Y’know. From what I’ve been able to shake out, she’s committed a couple random acts of arson. A little drug trafficking. A few robberies…briberies…some light intimidation…mild torture…but she’s never _killed_ anyone.”

Suki’s eyebrows have lifted higher and higher with each minor sin Zuko has just mentioned, and are now practically at her hairline. “So…practically a saint, then,” she deadpans.

“Practically,” Zuko deadpans right back. His fingers are back to their agitated tapping against thetop of his desk.

Suki angles her head. “You get that everything you just mentioned is what we usually defend _against,”_ she says.

“The irony’s not lost on me,” Zuko assures her. “But I need to know she’s been given…even a _fraction_ of a chance to step out of my father’s shadow, before I can condemn her.”

Suki smiles tightly. “You’re one of the good ones, Zuko,” she tells him. “White knight in dark broody clothing.”

He seems surprised, then momentarily flustered, before recovering with an elegance that almost makes Suki doubt whether that awkwardness was ever there to begin with.

“I guess I’m still not sure why you want _me_ to look after your sister, though,” she adds hesitantly. “If she’s your family, wouldn’t _you_ want…”

“If I tried to look after my sister, we’d probably end up killing each other,” Zuko interrupts.

“I’m sure it can’t be that bad.”

“She’s tried to electrocute me three times,” Zuko tells her seriously. _“Three._ The first time was when she was six. With a fork and a toaster.”

Suki would love to hear the rest of that story, but Zuko is already moving along.

“Trust me when I say we should not be left alone together,” he says. “No, I need someone else in charge of keeping her safe. Someone I can rely on. As best I can.” His lips press together in a thin line. “This may have escaped your notice, but I have some…minor…trust issues. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I trust—that is, I have good feelings about everyone who works here…y’know, really strong, good—great feelings—and faith in—in all of you…”

“It’s okay,” Suki assures him, noting the way his skin is starting to flush. She’s never seen him off-kilter like this before. Of course, his father was just arrested, and now rescuing his sister from his father’s influence is a very pressing anxiety.

Oh, daddy issues run deep with this one, apparently.

But Zuko looks relieved by her assurance.

“I’ve just had to be careful,” he tells her with more control. “My whole life. Sokka’s one of the few people I trust—and I almost thought about assigning _him_ to my sister, but I’ll be honest—and understand I mean this with all the affection in the world—my sister would eat him alive.”

If Azula is half as badass as Zuko—or half as hot—there’s a good chance that’s true, Suki can’t help but think. Sokka is head-over-heels-ride-or-die-eternally-devotedly in love with Zuko, but he still gets weak in the knees any time a gorgeous guy or girl smiles at him, it’s just sort of how he is. Add onto that the fact that Azula is—or was—also a criminal mastermind in the making, and Sokka wouldn’t stand a chance.

“Yeah, Sokka might not be the best fit,” she agrees.

“Not even close. But you’re his best friend,” Zuko says. “He trusts you. And if he trusts you, and I trust him…that’s gonna have to be good enough. I mean, it _is_ good enough—you’re, y’know, great, and you’ll do, I think, definitely a good job, absolutely, and I have total trust in…”

“Zuko, it’s really okay, I get it,” Suki says.

He exhales heavily. “Thanks. This whole situation is just messing with my head. I haven’t seen my sister in almost ten years. And now I’ve got her sleeping off a hangover on my couch and it’s just…”

“It’s a lot,” Suki says. She sits forward, taking the file back slowly. “So…what’s the game plan here?”

“You’re gonna hate me for this, but honestly, first step is basically babysitting,” he tells her. “I’ve secured a safe house up in the mountains. I just need the two of you to lay low there while the smoke settles. I don’t really have an end date in sight, and honestly just keeping her from trying to escape back to the city is gonna be a full-time gig…”

“Hang on,” Suki interrupts. “What do you mean ‘keeping her from trying to _escape_ back to the city’? It’s not like we’re holding her hostage _,_ I mean, she hired _us_ to protect her…”

Zuko’s face is flushing again.

“…She _did_ hire us to protect her, right?” Suki says lowly.

“Technically she wasn’t exactly originally aware of the fact that we’re gonna be looking after her,” Zuko admits awkwardly. “I mean she knows now, because I told her, but also, I may have…sort of…abducted her to get her somewhere safe. Because otherwise, she’d want nothing to do with me, or my help.”

Suki blinks. “For fuck’s sake, Zuko—you’re holding your criminal little sister _against her will_ in the hopes that she’ll learn how to be _nice?”_

“In order to keep her from getting killed,” Zuko corrects sharply, his temper flaring, and Suki flinches. “Yes, this whole operation is my doing, and I’m footing the bill for every step of it, and I’m aware that I’ll probably regret it in the end, but I have to _try._ I was lucky enough to get away from my father. Azula deserves the same chance. If absolutely nothing else, I’d really rather she didn’t end up in the hands of some lowlife weasel vying for my father’s place, because to be honest, killing her is probably the _least_ of what they’d do to her.”

That shuts Suki up very quickly.

“So, yes. We’re holding her against her will. But you should think of this just the same as you would with any other job I’ve given you. Her protection is your number one priority. Is that something you think you can handle, or should I just keep her locked in my basement for the rest of her life?”

Honestly, Suki isn’t sure if maybe that second option might be more effective, but she lets out a slow breath and nods. “I can do it,” she says.

“Good. Read through that,” he instructs, pointing at the file. “I’m sure it barely covers half of what she’s done, but it’ll give you some idea of who you’re dealing with. The fewer curve balls she can throw at you, the better.”

Suki flips through the pages, skimming at random. “Five-foot-six, ambidextrous, owner of sixteen various motorcycles, attended and was expelled from three _very_ fancy private schools, captain of the volley ball team in all three, gave a girl a broken nose during a match by spiking the ball too hard right at her face,” she reads off. “Proficient in seven languages, and…alright…a master of _twelve_ different martial arts…” She looks up at Zuko with one eyebrow raised. “Are we absolutely certain she can’t just look out for herself?”

“The only way she knows how to look out for herself is by becoming destructive,” Zuko tells her. “That’s what Azula does. If she feels threatened, her instincts are to destroy everything in her path. Even if that includes herself.”

Suki shakes her head, looking back over the file in her hands. “You’re too good for her, you know,” she tells him.

Zuko tightens his shoulders, retrieving a folded piece of paper from his desk drawer and pushing it across to her. “That’s a map to the safe house,” he tells her. “Memorize it, destroy it, then head up there. Sokka’s already there setting up the security system. I’ll meet you both tonight to drop Azula off. Then it’ll be just the two of you up there while I figure out how the hell we’re gonna get this target off her back.”

*

Suki stares a bit stupidly at the safe house as she gets out of the car.

Most of her past assignments have been small scale bodyguard gigs, from providing safe escort to various locations, to guarding fundraisers, to looking after diplomats—even getting to take out a couple would-be assassins, which was pretty awesome.

She’s only worked out of a safe house on one other occasion, and it was when she was looking after the abused ex-wife of a former politician Avatar Security eventually helped take down. The safe house in question seemed quite a bit more safe than this one does. Sure it was tricked out with dozens of cameras and alarms and tripwires, but it was on the smaller side, discrete, boarded-up…essentially looked like a place no one had inhabited for years.

There is nothing small about this safe house.

It’s built into the cliff of a mountain, which, alright, that’s very cool and everything, and it’s tucked away among the hills and thick forest—but it’s also fucking _massive._ If Suki is meant to not only be making sure no one gets _in,_ but also making sure her charge doesn’t get _out,_ this seems like…possibly not the best design. There are marble statues lining the entryway. There’s a garden. A fucking pond. Urns. Fountains.

Thankfully, all these things look long-abandoned. This is all thanks to Sokka, who comes jogging out to greet her, a wide smile on his face.

“Katara and Aang have been in the garden re-designing it so all the plants look either dead, or overgrown,” he tells her as he gives her the tour. He points at the pond. “Those are all dead fish floating in there, Katara got a ton of them at the market and just dumped them in.”

Suki grimaces. “Appetizing.”

“We’re going for the _long-abandoned_ cover,” Sokka tells her. He points at the crumbling statues and algae-slimed fountain. “Toph and the Boulder spent all afternoon breaking shit so it looks as old and uninhabitable as possible. But the _really_ cool part is inside.”

She allows him to guide her through the gaping entryway, looking back and forth as he ushers her excitedly through, pointing out such ridiculous things as a pool, a gym, a library, a music room, a spa, and several spare bedrooms.

“So?” Sokka says, showing her to the room he’s picked out for her.

“So?” Suki echoes incredulously. “This is the _worst_ safe house Zuko _possibly_ could have come across. There are so many rooms…it’ll be impossible to keep track of Azula. And god forbid anyone actually got in, we’d never know it. The only good thing you’ve shown me so far is the view from my room—at least if I’m seated in front of this window day and night without moving an inch, I’ll be able to see if any cars are coming up the mountain. Bummer that they’ll be able to see me too, but hey, you win some, you lose some.”

“Oh come on, grumpy pants, you don’t really think I’d leave you high and dry like that,” Sokka says. He raps on the window pane. “One-way window film, baby. No one can see you. Bullet-proof, too, all of them. You’re welcome.” He points down around the garden. “Every little statue, every little urn, every little everything houses a camera, and the entire perimeter is surrounded by a triple layer of sensors.”

He walks her over to the walk-in closet, flips what Suki had assumed was a light switch, and all of a sudden, the far wall separates, revealing rows and rows of screens depicting each room in the house, and several points in the perimeter outside.

“Holy shit,” Suki murmurs.

Sokka draws her attention to three wide colored bars going down the far right side of the wall, pointing at the top one.

“These’ll light up when an outdoor sensor is tripped,” he tells her. “The first sensor begins at the end of the driveway, and circles all the way around back. It’s a silent alarm, so anyone coming through won’t know they’ve been detected. But this’ll light up in here. At which point, you can go on the offensive. If the perpetrators continue on unhindered, they’ll trip the second sensor a few yards in. That one…not so silent. Actually very very loud. It’ll blare through the whole house. They’ll definitely be alerted, but if they’re that bound and determined to get in, they might not scare so easy. Having said that, they are going to _regret_ it if they keep coming forward.”

He takes her shoulder and spins her to the left wall where a map of the sensors is laid out. “The third layer of sensors starts at the terrace,” he tells her, “and that’s where things get fun.”

“Fun.”

“Oh yeah,” Sokka confirms with a wide grin. “So our bad guys trip this third layer of sensors, and this whole place turns into a funhouse of boobytraps. Each room turns into its own danger zone. I’ve got a layout of each one so you know how to avoid it if worst comes to worst. You don’t wanna get caught up in some of these traps, trust me.”

“Do I even want to know what kind of traps you’ve set?”

“Well they’re all based on splatterfest horror movies of course…”

Suki stares at him.

“I’m _kidding._ No torture, no dismembering, no murder. Just discomfort and guaranteed ensnaring. But you will want to memorize the hell out of this map, just in case.”

He slings his arm around her shoulder, and pivots her to the right wall, pushing a button that opens into a shelf of various weapons.

“In the very unlikely event our bad guys get through all three layers of the outdoor sensors, plus every boobytrapped room in the house, you are in possession of a delightfully diverse array of weaponry. I handpicked some of your favorites, plus some good old-fashioned firearms. I know you like beating the crap out of people, but sometimes the best way to stop a bad guy is a bullet to the brain, and ka- _bloosh!_ No more bad guy.”

Suki stares around herself. “Sokka, this is actually really impressive,” she murmurs.

Sokka shines his fingernails on his shoulder casually. “Teo and I have been waiting for the opportunity to bust out this design. We’ve been working on it for years,” he tells her. “Not with the idea that we’d be housing the daughter of the Firelord of Crime of course, but just for kicks. Thought it’d be fun to create one big boobytrap house.”

“Mostly because of the word ‘boobytrap’?”

Sokka laughs delightedly. “Booby.” He wipes away a tear. “You know me so well.” He directs her attention back to the wall of screens.

“Now, when it comes to keeping track of Zuko’s sister, that’s a little less elegant,” he admits. “Basically, we got her a house arrest cuff for her ankle, and if she strays too far, it’ll start beeping like crazy. Oh—that reminds me.” He digs a watch out of his pocket and fastens it around her wrist, popping the cap to expose a display of buttons beneath. “This’ll beep if her little anklet goes off. Hit the green button up top, and all the doors and windows will lock automatically. And when I say ‘lock,’ I mean _lock._ This place becomes a fucking fortress, no way in or out, I don’t care _how_ good of an escape artist someone thinks they are.”

“You did all this in a _day?”_ Suki asks disbelievingly.

“Oh my god, are you kidding? No, Zuko gave us this house to play with months ago to experiment with new security technology. Like I said, this security system’s been Teo’s and my baby for years. Obviously I never thought we’d be trying it out on an actual human being so quickly, specifically when said human being is the daughter of a crime lord, but y’know. It’ll be a fun experiment.”

He taps the top of her watch. “Now, back to what I was saying: those three blinky bars on the side here’ll go off if any of the outdoor sensors are tripped. Buttons next to them turn the alarms on or off. You’ll want this on you at all times.”

He gestures back at the wall of screens. “Other than that…my mural of security footage. Multiple cameras in every room.”

Suki points to a few blackened-out ones. “I think some of them might be a little faulty, O Genius One,” she says.

“Nah, they work just fine,” Sokka tells her. “Those are for the bathrooms. I turned them off ‘cause I know how big you are on privacy. Just flip the switch beside each screen to turn them on or off. If you happen to be feeling pervy one day, the camera to Azula’s shower is this one…”

“Sokka!”

“Oh stop, you know I’m joking,” he says with a playful nudge. “Mostly.”

She shoves him back and he snickers, leading the way back downstairs. “So that’s the grand tour,” he says. “Any questions about anything, you can hit me up any time. Well…actually, that’s not true, we’ve blocked all service so no one can tap in. But someone from Avatar Security’ll be up every week to check in and give updates on our end of the mission. In the meantime, I’d definitely recommend memorizing those maps of the rooms and then destroying them rather than keeping them around. I hear Azula’s a sneaky devil, you don’t want her stumbling upon them.”

“Consider them memorized.”

They spend some time wandering around the grounds in companionable silence, taking in every detail of Sokka’s set-up, until Suki can’t help but ask:

“So did you know about Zuko? Y’know, about the fact that his father is an actual criminal mastermind? And…not just a criminal mastermind, but a crime _boss?_ As in head of one of the Four Families?”

Sokka plucks at a disfigured topiary as they pass by. “Yeah,” he admits. “I mean, not all the dirty details, he kinda keeps those to himself. But yeah. Ever since he left home when he was a teenager, he’s worked his ass off trying to create something that’s the complete opposite of what his dad’s created, y’know, something to protect people instead of using and controlling and brutalizing them. He considers it his moral duty to single-handedly undo every terrible thing his father has done.”

“God, he’s so fucking dreamy.”

Sokka sighs in agreement. “I do love that man of mine.”

They return to the inside of the house, exploring the rooms, taking in the obscene grandeur of the place. It still seems like a bizarre choice for a safe house, but with Sokka’s genius, it does seem a _little_ safer.

*

Suki’s admiration of Sokka’s genius diminishes a little when Zuko finally arrives some hours later only to trip the first two outdoor sensors, sending alarms screeching through the house.

“Probably should’ve remembered to turn those off,” Sokka says with a guilty grin, quickly grabbing Suki’s wristwatch.

The house goes silent, and Zuko bursts in, face twisted in anger, carrying an unconscious young woman in his arms.

“What the _hell,_ Sokka?” he snarls. “You were supposed to turn those off, you knew I was coming!”

“They’re off, relax,” Sokka says. He points at the girl drooped in Zuko’s arms. “Is that your sister? Follow-up question, did she just _sleep_ through that alarm?” He squints. “Follow-up-follow-up question…is she dead?”

Zuko rolls his eyes and heads for the living room. Suki and Sokka trail after him.

“No, she’s not _dead,”_ Zuko mumbles, dumping his sister unceremoniously on the couch. The girl stirs on impact, uttering a small murmur, but otherwise remains unconscious.

Zuko faces Sokka and Suki, crossing his arms over his chest with the crankiest scowl Suki has ever seen.

“When I left her tied to my couch this morning, she was sleeping off a hangover,” he tells them.

“I’m sorry—you left her _tied_ to your couch?” Suki interrupts.

“Trust me when I tell you it was necessary. When I got back from work, she was wide awake and trying to escape, and when I tried to stop her, she hit me over the head with a lamp, and tried to stab me to death with a spoon.”

“…She tried to _stab_ you to death…with a spoon _,”_ Suki intones.

“It was the only thing she had handy. And it fucking _hurt,_ Sokka, stop laughing.”

Sokka quickly stifles his giggles, miming pulling a zipper across his lips.

“When I got the spoon away from her, she kicked me in the stomach and tried to catapult herself out the window,” Zuko continues. “So I grabbed her around the waist, broke out the ketamine, and…” He gestures toward her unconscious form. “That.”

He says _broke out the ketamine_ in the same tone someone might use to say they _broke out the good silverware._

“She should be out for a while.”

Suki stares in disbelief, and Sokka slings his arm over her shoulders. “Aren’t you glad you took this job?” he asks her.

Zuko lets out a long exhale, shoving his hands in his pockets. “So. I think if Sokka gave you the layout, and you’re all set on everything, we can get out of your hair,” he says.

“You’re really going to leave me alone with the woman who just tried to _stab you to death_ in order to escape,” Suki says incredulously.

“Well, yeah,” Zuko says, looking puzzled by her tone. “You should be fine. I told her this morning she’d be looked after by one of my team, she knows to expect it. Anyway, she’ll be pretty groggy when she wakes up, she’s a lot easier to talk to when she’s not fully conscious.”

“Yeah, Suki, maybe you two can become best friends by the time the ketamine wears off,” Sokka deadpans. He gives her a friendly clap on the shoulder. “You kids have fun. We’llbe back in a week to check in.”

Suki gapes as he and Zuko make their way to the door.

“Maybe keep her away from sharp objects,” Zuko advises over his shoulder. “And no violent movies. Also I think she might have a peanut allergy.”

The door shuts behind them, and Suki is left alone in the middle of the living room.

Well, not _completely_ alone, of course.

She turns to look at the woman sprawled across the couch and feels a sort of dread creeping into her gut.

Just hours before, she had been inwardly laughing at the idea of Sokka assigned to Zuko’s sister, someone she imagined would likely share his good looks, if only in a watered-down sort of way. She had been amused at the idea of Sokka getting all googly-eyed over some girl half as hot as Zuko, amused at Zuko’s speculation that his sister would eat Sokka alive.

Here’s the problem: Azula is not _half as hot_ as Zuko. Even in sleep, Azula is fucking _stunning._ Full lips, high cheekbones, and a razor-sharp jawline ending in a delicate point at her chin manage to make her look nothing short of angelic, her face framed by a tumble of dark hair that’s half-pulled-back, half loosened mess—very possibly from her scuffle with her brother earlier. She’s dressed in a shimmery red, barely-there halter top that’s tugged up enough to show off a teasing hint of her defined midriff, and frayed black shorts that barely cover her ass, displaying long, muscular legs marred in places by minor scrapes and bruises. Zuko must have tried to preserve her dignity a bit by wrapping her in a red bomber jacket, but she otherwise looks like he scooped her out of some dingy nightclub at some ungodly hour after their father’s arrest, and failed to provide her with a change of clothes.

She’s a mess, and she’s gorgeous, and Suki has definitely made a _very_ big mistake in taking this job.

She sits down on the edge of the couch, at a loss for what to do next. Without fully thinking things through, she finds herself reaching forward to brush a strand of hair out of Azula’s face, unable to help but trace the delicate curve of her jaw.

Her blood freezes in her veins as Azula’s eyes snap open on contact and she lashes her hand out, closing her fingers around Suki’s wrist and pulling her off-balance.

Suki, who has just about jumped out of her skin in alarm at the sudden unexpected attack, tries to pull her arm back, but in the time it’s taken her to realize what’s happening, Azula has wrestled her expertly—almost _gracefully—_ to the floor, straddling her hips and pinning her wrists on either side of her head.

Suki stares up at her in utter shock, paralyzed by cold amber eyes and the slowly forming smirk on her face almost more than anything else.

“So you’re the sweet thing my brother’s paying to keep watch over me,” Azula says, voice husky from her drug-induced sleep. “What an absolute pleasure to meet you.”


	2. Chapter 2

Azula has had better days.

To be fair, Azula has had _worse_ days as well, but not by much. This one is easily in type five.

For reference, in just over 24 hours, Azula encounters and participates in the following events:

\- Can’t for the life of her find her father, even though she has an argument she needs to continue with him after it was interrupted three days ago by that idiot Zhao

\- Prepares to take off for her favorite nightclub to blow off some steam only to find that her most beloved motorcycle has a scratch and a flat tire she doesn’t feel like dealing with

\- Settles for taking her _second_ most beloved motorcycle instead

\- Has to swerve when an oncoming truck does something idiotic—granted, she recovers control of her bike more gracefully than most would, but she does skid into part of a building first, sending debris flying everywhere, resulting in scrapes and a bruised rib, not to mention a bruised ego

\- Finds out that her favorite nightclub was burned to the ground over the weekend

\- Meets her friends at her _second_ favorite nightclub, where it’s dirtier, the music is too loud, and the people are of a much lesser caliber than she’d prefer to rub elbows too closely with

\- Finds out that her best friend Ty Lee just got engaged to Chan, the son of one of her father’s underlings who is of course an idiot and won’t be able to please Ty Lee in bed the way Azula has made the occasional habit of over the course of their friendship

\- Gets drunk and broods, because truly, how could Ty Lee settle for that meathead when Azula once made her come twelve times in one night—not to mention, if Ty Lee is _committed_ to Chan, that means she’s off-limits to Azula, and Azula is a firm believer that _nothing_ should be off-limits to her

\- Tries her luck at re-seducing Ty Lee just to prove that she can

\- Gets rejected for the first time in her entire life

\- Sulks, gets drunker, and dances with the first mildly attractive woman in her line of vision, which, admittedly, has become pretty blurry by this point

\- Gets even drunker when she remembers her fight with her father

\- Decides to track him down and confront him, because really, there are only so many places he could have disappeared to

\- Forgets where she parked her motorcycle

\- _Finds_ where she parked her motorcycle, only to then find some asshole leaning on it like he’s been waiting all night for her

\- Prepares to gut this idiot if he’s scratched the paint job

\- Discovers the idiot in question is her brother, who she hasn’t seen in ten years, and yes, he does look just as stupid and self-righteous as she remembers

\- Hears him say something like “Umiffee, addzin estssed”

\- Makes him repeat that because that was gibberish, and learns that he actually said “Come with me, Dad’s been arrested.”

\- Tries to claw his eyes out when he approaches her, but is far too drunk to be successful in her eye-clawing attempts

\- Gets picked up and thrown over his shoulder like a sack of cabbages and carried bodily out of the parking lot

\- Throws up, probably

\- Blacks out, apparently

\- Wakes up tied to her brother’s couch

\- Has to deal with her brother explaining in detail that their father has been arrested, for real this time, and that Azula is now in great danger and in need of his protection

\- Almost feels emotions of some description with regards to this breaking news—fortunately is able to shut them down fairly quickly

\- Has to deal with her brother insisting that she be taken to a safe house and watched over by a friend of his until he can “deal with the situation” whatever that means

\- Has to endure her brother insisting she eat something, eventually resulting in him force-spoon-feeding her an entire bowl of congee he claims is a good hangover cure

\- Gets abandoned by her brother because he “has to go to work” like some blue collar sap

\- Almost feels some emotions again, so decides to sleep them off

\- Tries to escape when she wakes up, only to have her brother stab her in the arm with a shot of ketamine

So far, the only good thing about this day has been waking up to the vision that is the security detail her brother has annoyingly thrust upon her, as if she somehow needs his help.

On the upside of things, Security Detail is quite possibly one of the most beautiful women Azula has ever seen. Wide, stormy-blue eyes, tantalizingly kissable lips, and soft skin where she drifted her fingers across Azula’s jaw…she is truly a wonderful thing to wake up to.

On the downside, Azula now has to be a little more careful about the way she escapes; the last thing she wants to do is have to ruin that pretty face. If worst comes to worst, she will, of course. But if it can be avoided, Azula would prefer to avoid it.

An unfortunate thing Azula did not take into account: after a long night of drinking followed by a heavy dose of ketamine, her struggle back to consciousness has been less than seamless, and when she tries to get to her feet after wrestling Security Detail to the ground, she stumbles and collapses to the floor in the most humiliating display of clumsiness she has ever committed.

Security Detail is surprisingly quick to recover from her earlier assault and grabs her shoulder, trying to pull her up and restrain her at the wrists. When they lock eyes, she seems startled, and her grip loosens just the slightest bit.

Using her moment of surprise to her advantage, Azula twists out of her hold and staggers to her feet, doing a lightning-quick survey of the room for any possible exits. Quickly discovering the obvious, she stumbles toward the front door, mildly alarmed that the floor seems to be undulating under her feet, and falls against the door, yanking as hard as she can on the handle.

It’s locked, of course. Which is not a problem. Azula has broken out of many rooms and home-made cells in her life, both from being abducted, and as part of her training, so this is hardly concerning. She steps back and tries to ram her shoulder through. She _does_ rebound slightly, but that’s fine, because then she tries to kick instead, and alright, she rebounds again, then feels hands enclosing her arms, guiding her back to the couch.

She slumps down onto the cushions with a huff, knowing when she’s been defeated.

Temporarily, of course. She’ll get out of here. But fuck, is her vision ever spinning.

She focuses back on Security Detail, who has seated herself down in the chair opposite the couch. There’s something strangely familiar about her that Azula can’t quite put her finger on and she blames it on the continued fogginess of her brain. She never forgets a face, especially one as striking as this one, even if that face is sort of swimming in and out of focus.

No matter. It’ll come to her.

“I have to admit, you’re a marked improvement over the usual type to hold me hostage,” she remarks with a drawl. Which is true. In the few other times she’s found herself in unexpected captivity, she’s had to endure looking at ugly faces, listening to ugly voices spit out ugly words. Security Detail here is a delightful change of pace, and Azula comes to the conclusion that any irritating situation is made significantly more tolerable if there’s a pretty girl in the general vicinity.

“I’m not holding you hostage,” Security Detail tells her, voice soft, but guarded. “My name is Suki. Your brother asked me to protect you while things back in the city are in flux.” A warning spark catches in her eyes, which Azula finds _very_ charming. “Now are you gonna behave, or do I need to tie you to the couch like Zuko did?”

Oh, Azula likes her.

“I’ll behave,” she answers with a patiently amused curl of her lips. “For now.”

Suki frowns at her, and Azula casually stretches her arms above her head. She almost regrets it—her scuffle with Zuko has left her more bruised than she’d realized, her side is aching from her near-collision the night before, she’s in a world of pain from the last dregs of her hangover, and she still feels groggy from the ketamine—but she’s more than a little pleased to note that Suki’s eyes have dipped down over the stretch of her body, snapping back up quickly, like that fleeting once-over had been accidental. That, in and of itself, is enough to have Azula feeling pretty good about herself, all things considered.

“Interesting choice of location,” she remarks, casting her gaze around the room. “I’d almost forgotten about this place.”

Suki raises her eyebrows, and Azula points at some of the artwork on the walls—artwork depicting old family emblems dating back hundreds of years, emblems that have made their way into her father’s current insignia as head of the Fire Clan.

“This was my mother’s getaway when she needed time alone,” she tells Suki. “She brought me and Zuzu here a couple times when we were small. Zuzu more than me.” She shrugs. “This was back before her rather sudden and unfortunate demise, of course.”

Suki looks suddenly annoyed, and Azula thinks she knows why.

“Did my brother choose this location?” she asks.

Suki exhales slowly. “He shouldn’t have chosen a place people could link to you,” she says, looking like she might like to slap Zuko in the face. “He really chose the _worst_ possible safe house imaginable.”

Azula leans back, running her fingers through her hair, teasing it loose. “If it’s any consolation, no one knows about this place,” she tells Suki. She flicks a piece of lint off the back of the couch. “Not even Ozai. He built my mother a pre-approved retreat off Ember Island, but this is where she really ran off to when she was feeling…overwhelmed. She was much like Zuzu in that way. Emotional. Fragile. Often had to scamper off to a nice, safe place where the world’s complications couldn’t touch her. How nice it must have been for her and my dear brother to bond over their shared weaknesses.”

Suki’s jaw is set angrily, and Azula is pleased to learn that she’ll be easy to toy with. Earnestness like that always is.

“In any case, I wouldn’t worry that pretty little head of yours too much about this location,” she continues, looking around with a sigh. “Zuko may have actually made a clever decision for once in his life. No one but he and I even know this place exists.”

She turns her gaze back on Suki. “Having said all that, I guess I _am_ still curious as to what I’m doing here.”

Suki fidgets. “Like I said, Zuko’s trying to keep you…safe,” she says. There’s a rigidness to her demeanor that suggests she may have reached some sort of secret conclusion in the back of her mind, likely one involving regret with regards to accepting this job. “He’s waiting for the dust to settle back in the city, and waiting for whatever power shifts that need to happen…to happen. Once things quiet down, I don’t know, I guess he’ll just let you go. Once he knows you’re no longer a target.”

Azula laughs a little. “So here’s my _tiny_ little issue with all that,” she says agreeably. “I’ve spent every waking moment of my life preparing to take my father’s place whenever he should prove incapable of holding onto his empire himself. You’re telling me that Zuko wants me to sit pretty while Republic City’s underworld guts itself and tries to spit out some pale imitation of my father, when that position is mine by birthright?” She shakes her head, clicking her tongue in mock disapproval. “No, I’m afraid that won’t do.”

“Well, that’s the other part of why you’re here,” Suki says stiffly. “Zuko would sort of prefer it if _you_ didn’t take your father’s place either.”

“Ah,” Azula says, eyebrows raising slowly. “So let me see if I’ve got this straight…you’re trying to protect _me_ from _Republic City,_ and _Republic City_ from _me._ All by yourself.” She smiles. “I hope my brother’s paying you double what you’d normally get for something like this. You deserve it. I’m not going to make this easy for you.”

“Funny you should say that. I’m not going to make this easy for you, either.”

Oh, Azula _really_ likes her.

She casts her gaze around again. “So am I to assume you have this entire place rigged and locked and escape-proof?” Her eyes fall to Suki’s left wrist, and she smirks, giving Suki a pitying head tilt. “And is _that_ where you keep all your controls? Inside a clunky little wristwatch like something out of a bad ’90’s spy movie?”

Suki’s face flushes and it’s oh so endearing.

“You might want to think about finding a better hiding place for that,” Azula advises. “There’s no telling what I might do if I get a hold of it.”

Suki studies her for a long time, then hits something on said ridiculous-looking watch.

Azula is ashamed to admit that she jumps a little at the sound of metal clunking all the way throughout the house. She looks around herself, seeing iron bars extend over the walls, doors, and windows, latches she’d been unaware of, a latticework of metal, and if she’s not mistaken, electric wire over a few of the the larger windows.

This all looks like an interesting puzzle to Azula, until her attention is drawn by Suki getting to her feet, removing the ridiculous watch from her wrist, dropping it to the floor, and stomping on it as hard as she can, crushing it beneath her heel.

Azula blinks up at her in genuine surprise. “What did you just do?” she demands.

Suki twists her heel further, grinding the already-broken watch into the floor, sending chunks of plastic and glass spitting out around her foot. “This was the one control to opening or closing the house,” she says. “Now it’s useless, and this house is permanently sealed.”

Azula feels her jaw twitch, and quickly reins in any emotions that might border on concern. Alright, so she wasn’t expecting Security Detail to be quite so brazen. That’s fine. She can still work with this.

“How self-destructively clever of you,” she remarks, going for nonchalant, but falling several steps short when her voice comes out tight and sharp. “Though I feel I must point out that you’re just as trapped in here as I am. Which could prove problematic for you in the near future.”

Suki shakes her head, some little spark catching in the corner of her eye that would be incredibly attractive if not for their current situation.

“I’m not trapped here,” she says. “Avatar Security will be here at the end of next week to check on us. As soon as they see something’s amiss, they’ll bust me out. From there, who knows. They might keep you locked in here forever, or they might build a case against you and send you toward a similar fate as your father.”

Azula’s eyes narrow. “And what’s to stop me from slitting your throat while you sleep?” she points out.

“You won’t hurt me,” Suki says confidently.

Azula laughs. “I’m afraid you overestimate how charming you are. I’m reluctant to disfigure or harm you in any way, but I’m more than willing to do it if that’s what it takes to get out. Or if it will amuse me while I’m trapped here.”

“You won’t hurt me,” Suki says again, even calmer than before. “Because if it’s one thing I know about the Fire Clan, it’s that honor is everything. When you give your word, it’s iron-clad.”

“What on earth are you talking about?”

“Eight years ago, you made me a promise,” Suki tells her. “I think you’ll find the evidence to be pretty binding.”

So saying, she pulls the hem of her shirt up just the slightest bit, exposing the ever so tempting V of her lower abs. Azula thinks she could spend hours tracing the definition there, when her gaze is drawn rather glaringly to the raised burn scar marring her side in the unmistakable swirl of the Fire Clan insignia.

Azula lifts her gaze from the burn mark up to Suki’s eyes, taking in that beautiful face, then exhales a frustrated breath.

 _Oh that’s how I know you,_ she realizes with a twist of her stomach.


	3. Chapter 3

Suki sleeps horribly that night. Not exactly surprising. Despite her earlier display of confidence, she is a little concerned she just made a huge mistake in locking herself inside a boobytrapped safe house with a would-be criminal mastermind.

She also feels like an idiot for not having immediately recognized Azula. She’d just been so disarming when she was asleep, it wasn’t until those cold amber eyes snapped open and locked with hers that everything came tumbling back to her.

She stops herself from dwelling on any uncomfortable memories, focusing instead on what’s relevant to her current situation: Azula will not hurt her. Azula _can’t_ hurt her. If she truly sees herself as the Firelord’s successor, as the beating heart of the Fire Clan itself, she won’t dare do so much as pinch her.

Ironically enough, Azula’s status as heir to the title of Firelord is the only thing keeping Suki perfectly safe from her. Safe from all members of the Fire Clan, in fact.

She was able to depart from the living room with relative dignity, leaving Azula to marinate in the memory of that binding promise from eight years ago, and the image of the burn mark on her hip—but now, alone in her bed, Azula’s presence seems suddenly more all-consuming. Suki tosses and turns for hours, haunted by memories and dreams of pale gold eyes, of those long fingers burying in her hair and pulling her head gently back, painting her lips ruby red, fire dancing behind her…

Suki finally abandons her attempts at sleep at just after four in the morning, kicking her blankets off and groping for her workout clothes in her still-unpacked bag at the foot of her bed. If she can’t sleep, she might as well hit something.

The gym downstairs looks odd now that the windows are barred, leaving the floor striped with dimming moonlight from outside. Suki makes a beeline for the heavy bag, and beats the shit out of it until she’s drenched in sweat and her limbs feel like they’re made of lead.

She’s discouraged to find that even that wasn’t enough to take her mind off Azula, and makes her way for the shower upstairs. It’ll either wake her up, or put her to sleep, and she isn’t sure which she prefers right now.

She pauses as she passes through the living room on the way to the stairs. There’s a lump on the couch, and as Suki draws cautiously nearer, she realizes it’s Azula, sound asleep, apparently having never moved after their somewhat explosive meet and greet from earlier. She looks small curled up like this, fingers twitching occasionally, and brow drawn into a hard line, even in sleep, like she’s in pain.

Suki almost wants to soothe that line away, or at least give her a blanket, _something,_ but then she remembers those eyes snapping open, the fingers gripping hard around her wrist, and decides to leave well enough alone.

The shower wakes her up somewhat, and by six-thirty, she almost feels human. She starts unpacking some of her things, pausing when she comes to Azula’s file that Zuko so meticulously put together for her. She sits on the edge of her bed and glances through it, wishing she’d read into it quite a bit more thoroughly before agreeing to take this job.

 _A couple random acts of arson,_ Zuko had told her. _Bribery. Light intimidation._

Those should have been red flags for Suki, should have made it obvious right away that she’d met Azula before, and that she’d paid a hell of a price for it. Learned a hell of a thing, too.

She runs her fingers over the newspaper clipping dated eight years ago of the burning of Ba Sing Se Military Academy—the one Suki had attended from age 12 to 16 before realizing the whole system was a veritable snakes nest of corruption.

She’d enjoyed it at first. Her interest in joining any kind of service once she graduated was fairly non-existent; but she liked the school for what it was, its rigorous curriculum, the emphasis on physical training, the rigidity, and how much fun it was to _break_ the rules of something so rigid—occasionally, of course. On the whole, she was studious, and responsible, quickly making Cadet Captain—but breaking the rules was fun, as long as you could get away with it. Suki was always smart enough to get away with it.

For the first few years, she thrived at Ba Sing Se Military Academy. The downside, of course, was that she only got to see Sokka on school breaks, but she quickly made friends with her cohorts, especially those in her martial arts class, their little group coming to call themselves the Kyoshi Warriors after the founder of the style taught.

She’d been stupid, then. Everything seemed simple, black and white.

That all changed the night of the senior class’s graduation. It was all pomp and circumstance, but Suki and her friends would get to dress in their formal uniforms and attend as the most promising of the upcoming junior class, which left her buzzing with pride.

Most importantly to Suki, however, was that directly after the graduation ceremony, she’d be headed out to meet Sokka and spend what she assumed would be the summer of a lifetime with him. No rules, no responsibilities, nothing but hanging out at the beach and making out with that idiot every second she got the chance.

Unfortunately, Suki and her roommates were never able to attend the ceremony. As they returned to their dorm room after a long day to change into their uniforms, the door slammed shut behind them and before the three of them could even begin to rally themselves, Suki felt a series of quick strikes delivered to various pressure points on her body, and she slumped to the ground, as helpless as if she’d been beaten to within an inch of her life. It wasn’t so much pain that she felt, but simply helplessness—no matter how hard she struggled to raise to her feet, she could barely do so much as twitch.

Paralyzed, she and her roommates were useless as they were dragged backward, and their attackers gagged and bound them at the foot of their respective beds. It was from here that they were able to finally get a look at their attackers, and Suki felt a strange chill at what she saw. Three girls, no more than a few years older than herself, had taken them down with minimal effort, so quickly and so precisely, Suki had barely had the chance to blink.

Somehow it would have made more sense to her if their attackers had been large, burly, hardened criminals who had managed to muscle their way in—there was something strikingly sinister about this attack coming from girls about her age, something almost viciously calculated about their nature that caused something to twist in Suki’s gut.

She could do nothing but stare and squirm helplessly as the girls made for the pressed uniforms Suki and her roommates had laid out on their beds, stripping out of their own clothes and taking their time changing into the Ba Sing Se colors. They were having _fun,_ she realized with anger. They were enjoying dressing up, laughing to each other, rummaging through Suki and her cohorts’ personal belongings, tossing things back and forth.

“What do you think, girls?” the one who seemed to be the leader finally asked her companions, turning to them and smoothing down the front of her stolen cadet’s uniform. Her voice was smooth and controlled, tinted by the smallest drop of venomous amusement. Red lips curved upward in a cold smile that sent a chill slithering up Suki’s spine.

One of the girl’s companions, small and slim with a long braid that reached nearly to her waist, gave an excited gasp. “You look so _pretty!”_ she exclaimed, then nudged the other, much taller girl beside her to get her attention. “Mai, doesn’t she look pretty?”

The girl called Mai looked largely unimpressed, possibly because she was more focused on the cuffs of her own sleeves, which were noticeably too short for her. “As pretty as you can in that much green,” she said flatly, her lack of interest almost palpable. She held up her arm. “I look like a 13-year-old boy going through his first growth spurt.”

“It will have to do,” the leader said impatiently. “Ty Lee, button your shirt up, we’re not here to flirt, we have business to attend to.”

The braided girl pouted, but did as she was told.

The leader slowly fixed her gaze on Suki and her cohorts, examining them closely, like she was trying to read their inner most thoughts.

“Now which one of you,” she mused, clasping her hands behind her back and beginning to pace in front of them, “wants to point us in the right direction to your headmaster’s quarters?”

She stopped, looking from one to the next. “No volunteers? That’s a shame. And here my friends and I went to all the trouble of outfitting ourselves so perfectly to gain access to your little school…surely _one_ of you can find it in yourself to be of assistance.”

The girl slid her gaze across each one of them once more, lingering just a beat longer on Suki, like she’d mentally identified her as the highest ranking. Suki braced herself for the attack she knew was headed her way.

To her alarm, the leader dove for Suki’s cohort instead, yanking her to her feet and pulling her head back casually by her hair. “What about you?”

“Let her go!” Suki shouted around the cloth that had been shoved in her mouth.

The leader paused, a knowing smile forming even before she dropped her gaze back to Suki. “Ah. I thought you might have something to say,” she said, sounding pleased. “Mai, Ty Lee—take these two somewhere I don’t have to look at them.” She crouched before Suki, taking her chin in her hand. “This one and I are going to have a little chat.”

Suki really struggled then, trying to find the muscle control to lunge after Mai and Ty Lee as they dragged her friends away, shutting the door behind them. She succeeded in doing little more than jerking forward, and the leader’s hand was on her shoulder before she could get any farther than that. She cringed as the other girl’s fingers closed around her arms, pulling her with surprising ease to her feet before guiding her down almost gently to sit on the edge of the bed.

She let go of her, and went to her nightstand, looking over her possessions, rummaging around in the drawer. She held up a tube of lipstick, smirking.

“I didn’t realize military schools allowed makeup these days,” she commented. She gave her a mockingly disapproving look. “Or did you sneak this in as a tiny act of rebellion?”

She returned the lipstick to its place, and continued to look through the items on Suki’s nightstand until she found a strip of photo booth pictures Suki and Sokka had taken the summer before she first came to Ba Sing Se Military Academy. It was one of Suki’s prized possessions, those six images of her and Sokka goofing around in the photo booth, the last one on the strip forever immortalizing the moment she finally worked up the courage to kiss Sokka on the cheek. Beneath the strip, she’d scribbled their names, barely stopping herself from drawing a stupid heart beside them.

The leader ran her finger along their names before turning to her, the strip of photos still in one hand. “Suki, is it?” she asked. Suki stayed silent and the leader tossed the photo strip onto the bed beside her. “That’s a pretty name. Suits you.”

Suki watched her grab a chair and drag it over so she could sit in front of her.

“I’ve never really had the knack for girl talk,” the leader admitted. “So let’s talk commander to commander, shall we? I’m in the midst of…let’s call it an initiation. To demonstrate my prowess, I’ve had to put together a little project. In this case, that project entails burning down the decorated quarters of a man once involved in the death of a dear member of the Family. It’s not _exactly_ part of my training, but it’s a fun little extra curricular activity that might earn me some brownie points from the people who matter.”

Suki glared at her wordlessly, and the leader rolled her eyes. “Your headmaster has been a thorn in my Family’s side for years,” she clarified. “I thought it might be fun to have a night out with my friends tearing down that which he’s most proud of. Unfortunately, as my friends and I learned, your academy is nothing short of a maze, and outsiders aren’t exactly welcomed with open arms.” She gestured at the uniform she’d taken. “We can blend in just fine with these,” she said. “But as to locating your headmaster’s quarters…I’ll admit, we did come in blind. Which is where you come in. High-ranking little cadet such as yourself, you must know where we can find them.”

Suki continued to glare at her.

The leader held her gaze for a moment, then shrugged one shoulder up. “Suit yourself,” she said. “Though I did come here with the intention of setting _something_ on fire. No matter. If you don’t want me destroying your headmaster’s quarters, I’ll make do with the dorms instead. I _think_ your friends should be able to escape before they’re completely consumed by flames…but it’s hard to say for sure. They did look fairly incapacitated. Getting out in time could prove just a tad tricky for them.”

She leaned forward, taking Suki’s chin in her hand again, locking eyes with her.

Suki would never forget looking directly into those eyes for the first time. That striking honey-gold, icy at first glance, but with danger flickering like lightning behind them. Suki was so struck by them that first time, she almost forgot herself, utterly captivated.

The spell broke when the leader scratched her nail gently along her jaw.

“I’m going to make this simple for you,” she said quietly. “You’re going to tell me how to get to your headmaster’s quarters, and for your generosity, I will reward you by not burning your dorm to the ground. If you _don’t_ tell me…well, I think I’ve made myself clear. So it’s up to you to choose where your loyalties lie: to your friends? Or to the weaselly commanding officer of this sad amassing of rocks?”

She glided her fingers away from Suki’s jaw, circling her hands to the back of Suki’s head to untie the gag. She drew it away carefully, thumb skimming almost soothingly at the corners of Suki’s mouth where the cloth had dug in.

“So? What’s it going to be?” she asked.

Suki made more of a show of choosing than she really felt. There wasn’t a doubt in her mind, not for an instant, where her loyalties lay—they were unflinchingly to her friends. The entire building and its long legacy could be burned to ash, and Suki would choose her friends over that every time.

“The inner circle,” Suki told her at last. “His quarters are in the inner circle of the building, the tenth door on the right.”

The leader smiled, chucking her gently under the chin. “That’s a good girl,” she said, getting to her feet.

She paused, picking the photo booth strip up and looking it over again. “I hope you’re telling me the truth,” she added. “If it turns out you just sent me and my friends into some poorly-devised trap or another, we’re just back to the dorm-burning, and that seems like an unnecessary waste. The thought of you burning up here with no one to rescue you…I’d rather not think of that pretty face of yours going up in flames.”

At the word _rescue,_ Suki’s eyes fell traitorously to the photo booth strip in the leader’s hand. That fleeting glimpse, of course, didn’t go unnoticed, and the leader smiled at her again.

“Unless you think someone _will_ come rescue you,” she said, looking over the photos, skimming her finger over their names printed at the bottom. “Someone like your boyfriend? Sokka, is it?”

She retrieved the tube of lipstick from her drawer, and returned to her place in front of Suki. “Tell you what,” she said, removing the cap, “if what you just told me _is_ a lie, and I _do_ have to come back to burn this dorm to the ground, I can at least see to it that you look your best for dear Sokka when he comes galloping in on a white horse to save you.”

Suki’s heart leapt as the other girl ran her fingers through her hair, pulling gently to tilt her head back. She jolted as the leader touched the lipstick to her lips, applying it carefully, meticulously. With the leader’s attention focused on her lips, instead of locking those penetrating eyes with hers, Suki was able to look at her more closely. She was startled to find how young the other girl looked—her age, maybe even a year or so younger. The hard command of her demeanor had suggested she was several years older, every movement, every word, every breath was so sharp and refined. But with that cold veneer temporarily dropped, Suki could hardly believe this girl was as young as she was.

She exhaled jaggedly as the leader gave a final sweep of the lipstick on her lower lip and withdrew her fingers from her hair. She lingered for a moment, admiring her work.

“Beautiful,” she said finally. She screwed the cap back on the lipstick and tossed it carelessly on the bed. “Be sure to give Sokka a kiss for me.”

She departed quickly then, and Suki heard her call to Mai and Ty Lee as she closed the door behind her.

Suki stared at the door, and it only very slowly came to her that the other girl had made a fatal error when she’d lingered, and gloated. Control was slowly returning to Suki’s muscles, and she worked at the cloth binding her hands. For what felt like hours, but was probably no longer than a few minutes, she worked away, rubbing her wrists raw until she got them free.

Once she’d shed herself of her bonds, she burst through her door, racing around the corner to find where her friends had been taken. It wasn’t far—Mai and Ty Lee had left them in the common area, apparently not taking any particular interest in harming them any further once their leader had called them away. Suki knelt by her friends, checking their pulses, confirming that they were simply unconscious, likely having endured a second round of strikes to keep them in the dark if they’d tried to escape.

Reassured that they were fine and would wake up shaken but unharmed, Suki took off after their main threats. It was eerie, running through such empty halls. The graduation ceremony was in full swing, and every corner of the academy save the reception hall was deserted. Suki blew past it, barely registering the names being called out, the applause, the over-the-top fanfare.

_Inner circle, tenth door on the right._

She needn’t have bothered counting. She smelled smoke the second she breached the inner wall, saw waves of it spreading through flickering yellow, orange, and red.

Fire alarms blared suddenly, and Suki charged into the smoke. She was going to take these girls down if it killed her. Her allegiance to Ba Sing Se Military Academy was tepid at best, but these girls had gone after her friends, and she intended to make them pay for it.

She nearly collided into the slim one with the long braid, flattening herself against the wall just in time to avoid being seen. Just as she was rushing into the smoke, they were rushing out. Mai and Ty Lee avoided her, but Suki threw her entire weight against the leader, knocking her to the floor. In the thick cloud of smoke, the others never saw it happen.

Suki rolled with the leader outside the inner circle, pulling her to the middle circle and into one of the abandoned classrooms, and dropping her to the floor, pinning her down with her entire weight. Those icy gold eyes flashed up at her in surprise.

“Well, well,” she panted, looking like she was struggling to reclaim some sense of bravado. “Look who can walk again.”

“You and I are gonna stay right here until the authorities come,” Suki declared as fiercely as she could.

The other girl cocked her head, then laughed, a deep, genuine laugh. “The _authorities?”_ she echoed delightedly. “You mean the Dai Li?”

Suki frowned, not sure what that meant.

“Please don’t tell me you’re so naive as to think the ‘authorities’ in this district are any more than pawns and footsoldiers of the Earth Clan,” the other girl said. “The useful ones, anyway.”

When Suki continued to frown at her, the other girl squirmed tauntingly. “Check my pocket.”

Suki hesitated, then shifted her weight, digging into the leader’s left pocket and drawing out a black thumb drive.

The leader jerked her head toward the front of the room where a library of ancient, beaten-up old laptops sat in waiting for those students who couldn’t afford devices of their own.

“Go ahead, look what’s on it. I won’t move until you’ve seen what you need to see. I swear on my Clan’s ring.”

Suki glared down into those golden eyes, and yes, it really did look like there was lightning crackling behind them. She didn’t know what she meant by _ring,_ she didn’t know what a Dai Li was, she didn’t understand what this girl meant by a _Clan,_ and she didn’t know what was on this drive.

She should have left well enough alone.

Keeping her gaze hard on the other girl, Suki got to her feet, booting up one of the old laptops and carefully inserting the drive.

“The password is ‘Laogai’,” the leader said helpfully from the floor.

Suki didn’t bother asking her how she knew that, simply typed it in and waited for the encrypted information to load into long columns of various documents. Bracing herself, she began clicking through them.

Suki would not understand the full meaning of everything she saw until many years later. She wouldn’t comprehend the complex web of corruption, of nearly a hundred years’ worth of illegal business deals funded by the Ba Sing Se Military Academy, funneled through the Ba Sing Se police precinct. This more detailed understanding of what she saw wouldn’t come until five years down the line when she revisited what had happened and made some crucial decisions in her life.

What she did understand at the time, was that she was looking at a detailed log of illegal drug trade, and—far more horrifyingly—a detailed log of human trafficking.

The true severity and complexity of these crimes wouldn’t resonate until later. All Suki had for the time being was her gut reaction, and the way she felt like she’d been sucker-punched by the image of Ba Sing Se Military Academy’s headmaster Long Feng buying and selling young women and men, shipped in from overseas where supposed wars were being fought—wars Suki had once believed were honorably justified.

“Ugly, isn’t it?”

Suki nearly jumped out of her skin at the closeness of the other girl’s voice. She hadn’t even heard her get to her feet.

The other girl ran her finger along the edge of the laptop, gathering dust on the tip. Outside, it was getting brighter from the flames overtaking the inner circle. The air was sharp and thick with smoke, and sirens blared through the campus as emergency vehicles arrived on the scene.

“How many times have you looked at your headmaster in awe, and delighted at his praise?” the other girl continued, voice slithering into Suki’s ears like a snake. “What do all those accolades he’s given you taste like now? Not as sweet as before? Or do they taste sweeter? Knowing you’re beloved by someone as monstrous as him?”

Bile rose in Suki’s throat. “How could you ask me that?”

“Greater women and men than you have willingly fallen victim to the praise one can reap from association with one of the Four Families,” the other girl said with a careless shrug. She skimmed the backs of her fingers against Suki’s arm briefly. “I’m happy to see you aren’t one of them.”

“There has to be some mistake,” Suki said, flinching away from her touch and staring back at the multitudes of evidence against her headmaster. “This can’t be…”

“It was a surprise to me, too,” the other girl said, seeming to be enjoying herself. “I just came here for a little fun burning his legacy to the ground. Ty Lee is the one who found the safe containing this and many more delectable pieces of evidence of your headmaster’s crimes against humanity. All the better for me to be able to hand this over to someone who might take him off the playing field for good. There aren’t many who can. This district’s police force is largely populated by members of the Earth Clan’s Dai Li footsoldiers. There are only a _very_ select few people in the precinct who aren’t owned by the Earth Clan, and even fewer who are in possession of a moral compass that might actually be willing to put this man behind bars instead of turning the other cheek and funding his exploits under the table. If given to one of those very select few people, this little drive could be enough to convict your headmaster, and identify which of the precinct are actually members of the Dai Li.”

Suki chewed on her lip. “And I suppose you know who ‘some of the select few’ good ones are,” she inferred.

“It’s mostly just the one,” the other girl admitted with a smile. “Captain Kuei, as gullible and foolish as he can be, does have a rather unfailing moral compass. He stands firm when things are down to the wire. Of course, getting the drive to him without going through the lower ranks will be difficult, especially since the grand majority of those lower ranks are Dai Li grunts who will happily destroy this drive without a thought. No, it would take someone sneaky and precise to get this drive to Captain Kuei directly. Someone like Ty Lee, perhaps.”

The girl’s fingers were suddenly on Suki’s shoulder. “Shame about the school, though,” she continued with a sigh. “Some of the students here—some of your dear friends, I’d imagine—don’t really have a home outside it, do they? And what about you? Is there a family waiting for you, or is this it for you? Without the headmaster, Ba Sing Se Military Academy will fall, and who knows what will happen to you and those other unfortunate students without it?”

She held out her hand, devilish smile back in place. “That’s twice in one night you’ve had the privilege of holding this school’s fate in your hands,” she said. “You chose your friends before…what about this time? You can either throw that drive back into the fire, clearing your headmaster’s name and securing this school for the students who need it…or you can hand it over to me, and I can get it safely to Captain Kuei so that your headmaster can be convicted, and the Dai Li infiltration of this district exposed.”

Suki glared up at her. “It’s disgusting how amused you are by this,” she snapped.

“Who says I’m amused?”

“You’re toying with me. For no reason. If it’s Captain Kuei that would do the right thing, it’s Captain Kuei you should deliver this to, it should have nothing to do with me.”

“Maybe I’m just getting to know you. Maybe I’m genuinely curious about your nature.”

Suki took the drive into her hand, holding it tight.

“Do you swear,” she said, “that you’ll bring this directly to Captain Kuei? Do you swear that bringing it to him will expose the Earth Clan—or the Dai Li—whatever it is—that it’ll expose their involvement with the school and with the precinct?”

“I’ll bring it directly to _Ty Lee,”_ the other girl corrected, “who will then deliver it to Captain Kuei, so on and so forth. You have my word.”

They both jumped as a torrent of flame burst through the window, having spread far into the middle ring now.

Mind racing and throat burning, Suki handed the drive to the other girl, who took it, drifting her fingers along Suki’s wrist as she did.

The second it was in her possession, her smile spread wickedly. “Of course, by giving me this and eradicating the Dai Li’s presence in the Ba Sing Se police district, you’ve paved the way for the Fire Clan to infiltrate and take up those positions in their stead.” She twiddled the drive between her fingers. “Just like that, you pushed out the Earth Clan and secured their territory for the Firelord. In one move. Something the Firelord has been trying to do for years.” Her fingers were in Suki’s hair again, stroking along the ends. “It seems the Fire Clan owes you a debt.”

Just as Suki wouldn’t understand the full implications of her former headmaster’s crimes until years later, she wouldn’t understand the other girl’s claims for a long time, either. Gang wars over territory and control of law enforcement, schools, and other institutions were distant noise that at the time, Suki had no knowledge of.

What she did know was this: Somehow, by allowing this strange girl to keep this damning piece of evidence, she hadn’t just taken down a bad guy. She’d ensured that another, possibly _worse_ guy could move his people into place, taking what was already corrupt, and rebranding it under new and more widespread leadership.

What she _really_ understood was that when this girl said “It seems the Fire Clan owes you a debt,” she then dragged Suki toward the quickly spreading fire, slipping off one of many rings on her fingers and held it against the few unshattered glass pieces left of the window until it began to glow from the heat. She then lifted the hem of Suki’s shirt and pressed it into her side.

Suki cried out in pain as the metal seared into her flesh, gripping reflexively onto the other girl’s shoulders for support as it burned right through her.

She panted as the other girl released her, staring at her as she cradled her face gently.

“You’ve secured my family’s legacy on Earth Clan territory,” the girl said, stroking her cheek. “As such, you’re under the protection of the Fire Clan. You’re under the Firelord’s protection. You’re under _my_ protection. If _anyone_ from the Fire Clan harms a hair on that pretty little head of yours, you show them the mark I just gave you. They will _quail_ before you. And they will answer to me. Not a single member of our Clan can hurt you, myself included. At best, they will be banished and hunted. At worst, they will be killed.” She brushed her thumb over Suki’s lips, parting them, smearing her lipstick. “Think of me when you kiss dear Sokka, won’t you?”

Suki flips Azula’s file shut and throws it back into her suitcase. That was all a long time ago. She needs to focus on _now,_ needs to focus on the job, focus on her role in Avatar Security, focus on protecting Azula…

For fuck’s sake, protecting _Azula._

Azula who, at age 15, broke into her dorm and held her captive.

Azula, who burned down the entire inner and half of the middle circle of Ba Sing Se Military Academy.

Azula, who tricked her into handing over evidence that would set off a chain of events resulting in the Fire Clan moving in on Earth Clan territory, jumpstarting years of gang warfare that had caught far too many innocent people in the crossfire.

Sure, _protect Azula._ _Zuko_ believes in her, so hey, she can’t be that fucking bad!

Suki wonders exactly what bullshit she must have pulled in a past life that would force her into this clusterfuck of a situation.

She touches her hand to the raised burn mark on her hip.

 _She can’t hurt you,_ she reminds herself, then rolls her eyes. _If nothing fucking else, at least she can’t fucking hurt you_.


	4. Chapter 4

Azula is annoyed but not exactly surprised to find that Suki is avoiding her. Head finally clear of the fog put there by hours of various methods of intoxication, Azula has been able to gather most of her wits about her by the afternoon following her arrival at the safe house.

 _Safe house._ Azula lets the phrase roll off her, just like she lets the memories of her mother roll off her. She’s reluctant to admit that this house might be the least safe place in the world for her—for her peace of mind, at any rate. A little difficult to relax in a house where the memory of her mother and the secrets she held lingers so heavily in the air.

Azula busies herself with other thoughts as she discovers an abundant stash of exotic teas in the kitchen cupboard. There are far more pleasant things to dwell on—ones that don’t include the sudden presence of her mother’s memory, or the sudden absence of her father.

Primarily, as Azula lets the water come to a boil, she enjoys reliving the memory of the first time she met Suki. Gorgeous, capable, ran _into the fire_ to stop her…Azula has been at this game for years now, and has yet to meet anyone else who would willingly leap headlong into a blazing building simply to avenge her friends, especially after having been so recently incapacitated by Ty Lee’s work.

Suki’s naïveté and foolish belief in the honor of Republic City’s joke of a legal system seems to have been wrung from her as well, which is a relief. She may still be a goody-two-shoes if she’s working for Zuko, but given that she’s found employment in alternate means of security, at least she’s a goody-two-shoes with a spine and a brain. Azula would be disappointed if beautiful, headstrong Suki had fallen in line with Republic City’s pathetic, useless, and often-times brutish excuse for law enforcement.

She really does enjoy Suki’s unexpected reappearance in her life, she thinks as she brings her tea into the sitting room. Suki was the first person she’d actually held against her will. Sure, she’d gotten into scrapes and scuffles with rivaling Clans from the time she was much younger, but she’d never broken into an institution before Ba Sing Se Military Academy, never held someone hostage, never maneuvered them and manipulated them like they belonged to her.

Azula sighs thoughtfully. It’s true what they say about never forgetting your first. Suki was her first, and favorite prisoner.

And that recklessness is still there. Suki has grown into a stunning self-possessed woman, but just like she ran headlong into a burning building when she was a teenager, at 25 she just destroyed her one way out of the safe house, locking herself inside to keep Azula contained.

Her recklessness was enchanting then, and it’s even more enchanting now—if slightly more inconvenient. Azula has no intention of remaining trapped in here with her; there’s a shipment of Element X due to arrive at the docks by the end of next week that Azula will personally be overseeing, and something as trivial as house arrest is not going to stop her from making an appearance. It was, of course, her father who was supposed to oversee this particular delivery of Republic City’s hottest new drug on the market, but as he is currently indisposed, and Azula is the rightful heir to his position, she’ll simply have to go in his stead.

The _how_ part is still a little unclear, but she’ll figure it out. Azula has never encountered a puzzle she couldn’t solve.

Annoyed with her thoughts of everything she has to do, all the little pieces she has to pick up, all the itemizing, bookkeeping, and reminders of her position that she’ll have to enact once she gets out of here, she begins to pace impatiently along the halls. This isn’t going to be an easy task, single-handedly instating herself as the Firelord without Ozai’s public blessing. Already, she’s sure, the Earth, Air, and Water Clans are likely trying to move in on her father’s—on _her—_ territory. Long Feng in the Earth Clan weaseled himself a plea bargain within months after his arrest eight years ago and has been eyeing Ozai’s position ever since; Hama and her Water Clan are getting hungry; and even Shoken of the Air Clan has been pushing his boundaries ever since Element X came onto the market. Add the unpredictable Red Lotus gang into the mix, and they could easily be in for a bloodbath.

Azula taps her fingers along the ceramic mug as she continues her aimless wandering through the halls. Ozai has only been gone a few days now, but without his leadership, the Fire Clan is vulnerable. It’s likely that Zhao has stepped in for her and her father for the time being, but he’s far too narrow-minded, too prone to narcissistic pettiness and instant gratification to be a sustainable leader for long. No, Azula’s Clan needs their Firelord—they need _her—_ to keep them all afloat.

She huffs in frustration. So much to do, so little time…and with far too many bars and walls in the way. She can’t miss that drug shipment. No matter what else happens, she can’t miss it. Her title depends on it.

Well now she’s irritated with Suki. Thinking about her was much more pleasant before reality settled in. Azula reminds herself that Suki isn’t just a pretty face she gets to enjoy during her unexpected incarceration—Suki is her enemy, and a disturbingly indestructible one at that. Leave it to Azula to create her own downfall in giving immunity to the one woman standing in the way of what she needs most.

Her frustration subsides somewhat as she passes the library, finding Suki poring over stacks of old journals inside. She knocks on the doorjamb.

Suki looks up, shoulders tightening reflexively. “Oh good, you’re awake,” she drawls, returning her attention to the papers littering the table top in front of her.

Azula leans back on the door, studying her. “What do you have there?” she asks.

“Ledgers,” Suki answers shortly, keeping her gaze on the books in question. “Your mom kept very thorough records.”

“She was in charge of my father’s finances for some time,” Azula says, “before she lost her stomach for the business.” She cocks her head. “Are her records really that enthralling, or are you just trying to ignore me?”

Suki looks up finally, frowning. “What do you want me to say, Azula?” she asks, tone entirely serious. “Are you expecting me to try to make nice with you? After everything you did? After everything you’re _still_ involved in? You want me to toss that all out of my mind and what, have tea with you?”

“I can actually think of several far more enjoyable things you and I could do together before the week is out and your friends come to rescue you,” Azula counters, heat curling comfortably in her core as Suki’s cheeks flush. Azula shrugs. “For now, my interest in you is a little more practical.” She gestures down at her clothes. “I’m going on day three now of being in the same outfit, during which time it has been subjected to a near motorcycle accident, a drink being dumped on it, far too many hands tearing at it, possibly vomit, much in the way of sweat and toxic chemicals…I would love a change of clothes.”

Suki blinks, looking surprised. “Oh. I don’t…I don’t think Zuko remembered to…bring anything. For you.”

Azula rolls her eyes. “Of course not. Why should he bother with anything that doesn’t involve agonizing over the moral implications of every breath he takes.” She lifts one shoulder. “I suppose the one silver lining is that once he realizes he’s put me in an uncomfortable position, he’ll guilt himself into a frenzy of despair. Could be funny.”

Suki’s jaw twitches angrily. “You have no right to talk about him like that,” she says. “You don’t know him.”

“I don’t _know_ him?” Azula laughs. “What’s not to know? I _lived_ with him. He and my father fought _constantly_ once Zuko was old enough to understand what our family was a part of. He was always tormenting himself, wrestling with imaginary inner demons, until he finally abandoned us like the coward he is. He was weak-minded enough to be bullied by all his rampaging emotions into becoming a de-fanged, coddled do-gooder with no loyalty to his own family. I can practically hear him bemoaning his melodramatic sense of guilt from here. With any luck, he’s taken to self flagellation. If not, I’m sure he’s found some sweet girl to coddle him further and hold him while he cries.”

“He’s not like that,” Suki snaps with fierce loyalty. “He’s brave, and hard-working, and self-sacrificing, he doesn’t lean on anyone else—he and Sokka have the most solid relationship I’ve ever seen, unlike you he’s actually capable of love…”

Azula’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise, and Suki clamps her mouth shut like she realizes she’s just over-shared something.

 _“Sokka?”_ Azula echoes. She feels herself smiling, the hilarity of the situation almost deflecting Suki’s jab about her being incapable of…

That doesn’t matter, that’s the wrong part to focus on. The other part is better, it’s delicious and stupid and an extra little weapon to add to her growing arsenal.

“Correct me if I’m wrong,” she says, “isn’t Sokka the name of that boy from the photo booth pictures you had in your dorm? The one you thought would come rescue you? Don’t tell me that same sweet boy left you for my brother of all people. That’s almost _too_ perfect.”

Suki seems to struggle to come up with the right response to that, before finally settling on, “That’s none of your business.”

Azula continues to smile patiently at her. “Regardless,” she says, “all sordid romantic dramas aside, I really would like a change of clothes. I don’t suppose you’d be willing to let me borrow some of _yours._ If not, I’m perfectly content to spend the rest of my time here walking around naked, but you seem like the type to get easily flustered.”

Suki may or may not be the type to get easily flustered—but she _does_ seem to be flustered by Azula’s taunt, much to Azula’s delight. The other woman’s cheeks have flushed a spectacular shade of red, and Azula wonders just how detailed of an image flashed in Suki’s brain that would cause her to become so out of sorts. She has to imagine it was pretty good if this is the reaction it needled out of her.

“I’ll bring some clothes down for you,” Suki mutters, getting to her feet and brushing past her.

“You’re too kind,” Azula replies.

*

Getting out of her dirty clothes feels wonderful; showering and then sinking down into the boiling hot water of the sprawling spa at the west wing of the safe house feels even better.

The multitude of spas back at her father’s estate are quite a bit more lavish, and come with the added option of having some girl or another come in to wash her back, or massage her, or really anything else Azula desires—she’s lost track of just how many of those women she’s ended up fucking against the side of the spa—but this one’s nice, in a simple, lonely sort of way.

Not that a little loneliness has ever bothered Azula. She does well on her own; the best safety lies not in _fear,_ as they say, but in solitude. She’s always preferred to surround herself with as few people as possible, Mai and Ty Lee being the obvious exceptions. She has, on occasion, tried to break herself of the habit of their companionship, knowing the danger emotional attachments present, but they aren’t like the others. They’re…special. Azula isn’t sure how to quantify it exactly, but Mai and Ty Lee are simply above other people, and she holds them apart in her mind. It’s why she had them along with her that night at Ba Sing Se Military Academy as part of her initiation into the Fire Clan when she was 15.

Her father had disapproved of her decision to include her friends in what was meant to be a Clan-only initiation ritual, and Azula still looks back at that moment with a sickening twist of her stomach. He rarely disapproved of her, but when she did stray from his expectations, it made her feel physically ill, heart racing, skin clammy, nausea leaving her senses reeling. It left her unsteady on her own feet for days, sometimes weeks at a time. Even the feeling of her own _skin_ made her nauseous, seemed like an offense, like she needed to rip herself out of it, get rid of anything and everything that had disappointed him. She always prided herself on her looks, but for him, she’d tear every piece of herself apart, get rid of everything that had contributed to her failure.

Fortunately, in this particular instance, she’d been able to re-frame her misstep for him, insisting that she had enlisted her friends’ help as a tactical move. She didn’t invite them along because she enjoyed their company, or because she was too weak, and it certainly wasn’t a need for someone to hold her hand. It was simple strategy.

She told him this with such perfect control and conviction, the only indication she might be lying was the pounding of her pulse in her own ears.

Her insistence earned his approval back, to both her unending relief, and her confusion. She’d preserved her dignity with the right words pieced together the right way. It was the first time she’d ever lied to him, the first time she’d ever manipulated him, and it made her almost sicker than when she disappointed him.

She tried ridding herself of Mai and Ty Lee after that, cutting them off completely throughout the rest of her initiation over the course of the next several weeks. And it was better, of course, without them. It kept her more focused, it made her stronger. Everything she did to prove herself to her Clan was for herself. She got to enjoy her triumphs alone, not having to share them, even in conversation with anyone else. She was her own, there was no need for anyone else.

But that was wrong too, apparently. Her father soon corrected that behavior, imprinting on her the importance of having _some_ connections. Complete and total aloneness was the opposite of what they aimed for. How else could she expect to command their empire without anyone to command?

She was permitted to be with her friends again—encouraged, even. But with a new focus. She cared about them only as far as their usefulness allowed.

It was a good lesson learned. Everyone served an individual purpose for her and her Clan. Some were for pleasure, some were for monetary gain, some were to lift herself up by, some were for sacrificing later.

Idly drifting her fingers back and forth in the steaming water of the spa, Azula wonders what Suki’s purpose is for her. Because she left such an impression on her at Ba Sing Se Military Academy. _Into the fire,_ she’d run _into the fire._ Beautiful and full of a righteous anger that thrilled Azula down to her core, even then. It had taken everything in her power that night to resist kissing her after she applied that lipstick, wanting so badly to see it smeared onto her own lips. She’d already taken her uniform, why not her makeup as well, why not take everything of hers, why not take Suki herself?

But her focus was required elsewhere. It was no secret that her father intended for her to inherit his empire when the time came, but he’d made it very clear that she would have to work for it. Her blood, sweat, and tears would have to go into it, in the most literal sense. There wasn’t time for anything that didn’t keep her on that path. She was allowed her various indulgences, but only if they remained in their proper place.

Suki had burned through her though, for a long time. For months, Azula had thought about her, letting her inhabit her darker fantasies, the ones that had no purpose, no grip in reality, only raw, tetherless feeling.

She was quickly broken of those habits as well, but for a time at least, Suki burned in her.

For a moment, she allows her mind to wander, entertaining the idea of calling Suki in to the spa, wondering if it would be worth it simply to see the scandalized look on her face once she realizes Azula is without clothing.

Or if by some improbable twist of fate, she might coax her into the water as well.

She almost laughs at herself. She knows better than that. Knows better than to think Suki would ever be that easily swayed. Knows even better than to fall into some idle fantasy about her. Fantasies are worthless, and a waste of time. Azula knows better than most that if she wants to achieve _anything_ in this world, there is only enough room and time to entertain real courses of action.

She distracts herself with memories instead, forcing her thoughts back to realities that were far more satisfying than any idle fantasy about a woman who’s determined to hate her would be. Every one of the women she ended up fucking in the Sozin estate spas had provided hours of entertainment no made-up flight of fancy could hold a candle to. She could so fully enjoy the memory of any one of those women, of allowing them to complete whatever above-board service they were employed to do, and repaying them by fucking them senseless.

She lived for the rush those encounters gave her as she would turn to them in the water, teasing them for their subservient kneeling on the tile edge of the spa, running her hands up their thighs, coaxing them to drape their legs over her shoulders so she could lick into them until their cries were echoing off the walls, fingers in her hair, thighs squeezing around her head. She knows the heat was oppressive for some of them—the air in those spas was always thick and humid, steam coiled around them, raising beads of sweat to the surface of her skin, causing stray strands of hair that had come loose from her bun to curl against her neck. Very few of those women could actually stand to come in the water with her, or if they did, they practically wilted in her arms when she was done with them.

Ty Lee was the only one who could handle her, who could take the overwhelming heat; the other women were lucky if they could take two rounds with her in that heat before they collapsed, completely spent. 

Azula always sent them away as soon as she was done with them, of course. Gave them the sort of ecstasy no one else would be able to even attempt, then sent them off before any of them got any wild ideas about trying to return the favor. She gave herself what she needed in their absence; she wasn’t about to be caught in a state of vulnerability or lack of control. She knew better than that.

She trails her hand down her body, trying to single out favorite memories to occupy herself with. Infuriatingly, none of them is succeeding in drowning out thoughts of Suki. She tells herself it’s simple fascination—those women from before had been so easy, Azula hadn’t had to do much more than _look_ at them before they were giving in to her.

But to be able to seduce a woman who, rather than running from the heat, would willingly throw herself into it, who is a fighter at heart, with the same kind of driving passion that runs through Azula’s veins… _that_ would be satisfying. It would be the type of conquest that would befit her new status as Firelord. Memories of a conquest like that would keep her burning for years to come. Thoughts of backing her against the side of the spa, of burying her fingers in that russet-toned hair and pulling, exposing her neck so she could lick and suck away every drop of water, every drop of sweat, tearing sweet sounds of desperation from her throat…

Azula’s eyes fly open and she removes her hand from herself with a jolt. Those images came so easily to her, she’d almost lost herself in them. Even now, she wants to sink deeper into the boiling water and let her imagination run unimpeded with thoughts of Suki, let herself picture every detail of what she would do to her given half the chance.

Idle fantasies are useless, she reminds herself.

She drums her fingers against the back of the spa.

Idle fantasies are useless.

But plans of seduction and conquest…those have merit.

Not to mention, that seduction could be the key to getting Suki to let her guard down, allowing Azula a greater chance of getting out. Her ability to get to that delivery on the docks could very well be intricately linked with her ability to ensnare Suki’s baser desires.

She stretches comfortably, leaning her head back against the edge of the spa with a contented sigh.

She’s always been a goal-oriented person, and it’s only fitting that as Firelord, she should set her sights higher than before. She has an important drug shipment to oversee and a self-righteous bodyguard to seduce by the time the week is out…then it’s back to raising her Clan up from the ashes and reclaiming the empire she’s spent her life training to rule over.


	5. Chapter 5

The downside to Suki’s job has always been what Aang refers to as the “hurry-up-and-wait” effect. Lots of frenzied planning and rescuing, followed by lots of standing around, on the alert but without much to do, to the point of boredom, and then suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, shit hits the fan.

Followed by more standing around.

Given that she’s currently trapped in a house with a dangerous criminal, Suki isn’t feeling all that great about standing around, hating that her enemy is as much within these walls as outside them. As much as she trusts Sokka’s genius, she’s full of restless energy and makes several sweeps around the house, making absolutely certain that it really is in total lockdown mode.

As close to satisfied with the situation as she’s going to get, she then turns to snooping. She has a right to know as much about the Sozin family as possible if she’s going to be trapped with one of them, and snooping is as good a way as any to get to know someone.

She starts with the ledgers in the library, at first genuinely curious. Ursa Sozin apparently took meticulous stock of every penny that passed through her family’s business. If there were discrepancies, she backtracked, adding footnotes to the pages indicating which of the Fire Clan’s underlings handled which transactions, finding patterns until she could identify any culprit keeping more than his fair share.

Suki imagines that once Ursa showed these notes to Ozai, the Phoenix Kingpin would have the traitors in his midst annihilated.

Ursa kept notes on those, too. Whether or not Ozai dealt with these traitors personally or had his closer subordinates deal with them, was unclear. Ursa didn’t go into any flowery details. What she had were cold calculations, and cold reports of erroneous or duplicitous actions, and their consequences.

It’s both disturbing, and oddly dry at the same time.

Suki begins looking elsewhere for entertainment once she’s delivered a change of clothes to Azula. She pokes around some of the spare bedrooms, finding them largely unadorned, save for the basics. It isn’t until she gets the bright idea to look into the closets that she realizes how many of Ursa’s belongings still remain here. Sokka and Teo must have haphazardly stuffed everything that might hinder their tech experiments into whatever corners were of no interest to them and left it at that because everything from the smallest footlocker to the larger walk-in closets are packed to the brim with art and clothes and decorations and mementos of all kinds.

Suki’s a little surprised Zuko didn’t clear that all out before giving the house to Sokka and Teo to play with, but maybe he forgot about it all. Or maybe wanted to keep the memory as far away from himself as possible.

Either way, Suki is left with a million things to marvel over now. The walk-in closet of the room just next to hers is of particular interest. Suki wanders through it, brushing her hand over pieces of furniture and clothing, finally resting on a set of shelves that Sokka must have thought were as good a place as any to dump several shoes, a stack of photo albums, a kite, some flatware, and a broken vase.

Ignoring the rest, Suki goes for the stack of photo albums.

They primarily consist of family photos. Exotic vacations taken to wild beaches, dripping rainforests, deserts rippled with mountainous dunes, most impressively a volcano which six-year-old Azula is climbing fearlessly, with Zuko some steps behind her.

Even in simple vacation photos like these, the separation between the four Sozins couldn’t be clearer—child Zuko with Ursa, child Azula with Ozai. Like each parent only has eyes for their respective favorite child.

Only a few of the earlier ones depict moments between Ursa and Azula, others with Azula and Zuko chasing each other around their sprawling estate, giggling and play-fighting. But the ones of Azula become more distant as she grows older, visual documentation of events she’s participated in, achievements of various kinds. Every picture of Azula is a testament to her brilliance and skill. Every picture of Zuko is a testament to Ursa’s adoration of him.

Suki can’t help but feel a small pang of discomfort at the obvious favoritism, but if all Azula’s time and affection revolved around Ozai, then of course Ursa would have redoubled her efforts and overcompensated with Zuko, likely forming a much stronger bond with him. It makes sense. But it’s uncomfortable to see the evidence of it.

The last album she looks at is quite a bit different than the others. Specifically, it seems to belong exclusively to Azula. Absent are any pictures of the family—it’s all pictures of Azula’s high school years, hanging out with her friends, most noticeably the two other girls she’d crashed Ba Sing Se Military Academy with, Mai and Ty Lee.

These all would have been taken by Azula herself, and other friends of hers—going by the information provided in the file Zuko put together about Azula, Ursa herself had died long before any of these pictures were taken. That fact, and the fact that this seems to be such a personal look into Azula’s life, makes Suki wonder if Azula’s claim that she’d “almost forgotten” about this house is really true or not. She wonders if Azula might have come here quite a bit more recently, tucking away evidence of vulnerability where no one else would think to look.

Because these pictures _do_ show vulnerability. Which is to say, yes, they do show her in more typically Azula-esque moments—volleyball matches, martial arts tournaments, trips Azula has taken herself, parties she’s gone to…but it all seems to come back to her, Mai, and Ty Lee.

Especially Ty Lee.

Suki would never have expected to see any hint of softness in Azula’s eyes, certainly not towards another human being. But a few of these pictures show it, Azula looking at Ty Lee almost tenderly, while Ty Lee grins toothily at the camera.

Suki pauses at one of them. They’re seated by a bonfire at the beach, Ty Lee’s arms thrown around her shoulders, lips pressed laughingly to her cheek, and it’s so noticeably goofy and overly-dramatic—but rather than giving into it or trying to push her away, Azula’s gaze is downcast, face tilted to the side, making her look almost shy, like Ty Lee’s exuberant affection caused something to shift in her, ever so subtly.

Suki eases the picture from its encasing in the book, not quite believing that expression could exist on the Azula she knows. But there it is. Azula looks like she wants to melt into Ty Lee’s embrace, looks like she’s trying not to appear affected, and the only way she can combat both is to look away, the hint of a soft smile hidden in the corner of her mouth. It’s not the self-satisfied smirk Suki would expect—it’s private, and uncertain. Almost fragile.

She jumps at the sound of footsteps coming from down the hall, and quickly closes the shuttered doors of the closet, not wanting to have to deal with the real Azula at present. Assuming that she’s simply looking for her and won’t spend any extended period of time in any one room, Suki is surprised when Azula makes very purposefully for _this_ room, realizing far too late that of course, this must have been her room when she came here as a child.

So now Suki is hiding in Azula’s closet. From Azula. She presses back into the shadows, not sure where to go from here.

Fortunately, Azula doesn’t seem interested in the closet as her footsteps veer off toward the bed. Letting out a slow, relieved breath, Suki dips her head, peeking through the shuttered doors to see what Azula is up to, and if she seems like she might be leaving soon.

Her mouth goes dry as she realizes that Azula has just come up from the spa, wearing nothing but a towel secured at her chest. Her skin is still damp, the sheen of water on her chest and neck noticeable even from here, her bun messy with stray strands of hair still wet from having been submerged in water.

She turns so that her back is to Suki, and before Suki has time to register what’s happening, Azula unhooks the towel from around her chest, letting it drop to the floor.

Betraying every sense of moral principle Suki possesses, her heart begins to thud heavily in her chest, heat rising in her cheeks.

As if Suki really needed to be reminded of how beautiful Azula is.

She’s slight, but made of pure muscle, the definition in her back and shoulders showing all the more from the play of light across the dampness of her skin. Suki is unable to stop her gaze from sweeping down the graceful curve of her spine, the flare of her hips, her ass, down to legs that look like they were carved from marble.

She looks like a weapon, Suki thinks. A very beautiful, very deadly weapon.

She’s even decorated like a weapon. Scorching across otherwise flawless skin, an elegant and intricately detailed tattoo of a phoenix rises up the length of the right side of her back, its shape flowing seamlessly with the shape of her body. It looks less like a tattoo and more like a part of her very being, and Suki is absolutely mesmerized by it.

Now is a good time to remind herself that Azula is evil, that Azula enjoys setting things on fire, that Azula likes manipulating people and treating them like objects.

What were all the things Zuko said? Suki quickly lists them off in her head like a mantra: _Arson, drug trafficking, robbery, bribery, light intimidation, mild torture._

All very good reasons to hate someone, and not be distracted by the fact that they’re physically flawless. This is the same woman who, as a _teenager,_ had burned down half of a school. Suki isn’t that desperate. Suki will never be that desperate.

Azula turns to the bed where she apparently left the clothes Suki had provided her earlier, and now Suki is subjected to a partial view of the small rise of her breasts.

_Arson, drug trafficking, robbery, bribery, light intimidation, mild torture,_ she reminds herself.

Her heart is just about in her throat as Azula pulls on her clothes— _Suki's_ clothes—slipping into her underwear, zipping up the fly of her jeans. She swallows hard as Azula forgoes the bra and picks up her T-shirt, body twisting as she pulls it on over her head so that Suki gets the briefest glimpse of her entire bared torso before she tugs the hem down.

_Arson, drug trafficking, robbery, bribery, light intimidation, mild torture._

Suki lets out a slow breath of relief when Azula finally leaves the room, and looks down to see that one of her hands is balled into a fist, blunted nails digging deep into her palms. The other hand still clutches onto the picture of Azula and Ty Lee.

She quickly returns the picture to its place in the photo album, running her fingers through her hair, and shaking some sense into herself. She doesn’t like these other sides to Azula—the Azula of the shy fragile smile, or the Azula of the casually devastating sultriness.

She’d prefer it if things stayed simple with just the _one_ Azula: the Azula of the arson, drug trafficking, robbery, bribery, light intimidation, and mild torture.

*

She’s spared any further encounters with Azula until the following afternoon when she’s in the midst of punching the lights out of the heavy bag in the gym.

“Not much of a fair fight if it can’t hit back,” comes the other woman’s unmistakable drawl from the doorway.

Suki pauses mid-strike and looks over her shoulder. “Are you offering to stand in?” she mutters.

Azula smiles. “I can’t hit back either,” she points out. “But I would make for a good moving target. Your precision could use some work.”

Suki feels anger spike in her like an electric jolt, and she turns to face her. “I don’t think you want to test my precision right now,” she growls.

Azula shrugs and saunters into the room, making for a set of punch mitts resting on one of the racks by the window. The sureness of her gait just adds to Suki’s suspicion that Azula has been back to this house far more recently than she claimed.

She steps away from the punching bag, body angled in a reflexively guarded position as Azula slips the punch mitts onto her hands and makes her way over to stand before her.

She tilts her head in surprise as she glances down at the loose black pants Azula is wearing, which are very much not the jeans she loaned her yesterday.

“Those are mine,” she says, a little stupidly.

Azula lifts her eyebrows. “Well spotted.”

“No, I mean why do you have them?”

“Because I want to work out and jeans are too restricting.”

“Okay, what I’m asking is _how_ did you get them?”

“By snooping through your things, obviously,” Azula says. “I also took that file from your suitcase, the one that’s about me. Call me a narcissist, but I’m genuinely curious what my brother was able to put together about me. Probably littered with inaccuracies, but it should make for some interesting reading later.”

Suki huffs out an irritated laugh. Of course Azula snooped through her things and then bragged about it. What else was she expecting.

“What was that?” Azula asks.

“Nothing,” Suki says, turning back to the heavy bag. “I just think it’s cute that you want to know what your brother thinks of you. You must’ve really missed him.”

Azula’s surprised silence at her jab is somehow very loud and she glances back at her to find her jaw set angrily, amber eyes flashing.

“You’re mouthy today,” Azula notes, her typically smooth tone ruffled just enough to let Suki know she hit her mark. “I wonder how brave you’d be if you didn’t have that mark I so generously gave you for your service to my family.”

“I don’t know, I seem to remember holding my own pretty well without it when you attacked my school,” Suki says. “Or did you miss the part where I tackled you to the ground?”

Azula’s smile slips back into place and Suki realizes she’s just stepped back into whatever trap Azula had been setting.

“I’ll admit, I was impressed by that,” Azula says. “You should be proud of yourself—you’re one of very few people who’s actually managed to take me by surprise.” She lifts one eyebrow, looking strangely amused as if a thought has just occurred to her. “Twice, actually. You do seem to be making sort of a habit of throwing yourself at me.”

Suki feels her body betray her as heat rushes up to her cheeks.

Azula at least has the decency not to draw attention to the very obvious blush, holding up the punch mitts instead with a taunting smile. “Well?” she prompts. “Are you going to play, or not?”

At Suki’s continued hesitation, Azula sighs. “It’s going to be a very long, very boring week if you and I don’t find something to do besides sitting around staring at each other all day,” she says. “And as you’ve shown me nothing but hostility since the very beginning, I figure we may as well play your way, even if it’s as straightforward as that heavy-handed flailing you call fighting.”

Suki turns back to her, frowning, and readies herself to strike. “Like your way of fighting is any better,” she says, swinging her fist into Azula’s left mitt, hitting her mark with a satisfying _smack._

Azula lifts an eyebrow, hand flinching from impact. “Come again?”

“All those flashy martial arts you do,” Suki clarifies, delivering three alternating strikes. “That’s all they are. Just flash.”

Azula’s eyes narrow. “Brave words when your opponent can’t hit back,” she says.

Finding that she likes that she has Azula on the defensive, Suki presses in delivering another series of blows, forcing Azula backwards. The other woman looks surprised by her aggression, hands moving quickly to catch each strike.

“I mean, don’t get me wrong,” Suki says, continuing to push. “All those forms are beautiful and everything. But it’s just over-the-top acrobatics. All that jumping around and spinning and knife hands…a straightforward punch to the face’ll end things just fine, and with much less energy being expended.”

On her next hit, Azula, rather than allowing impact, sweeps her hand out of the way, swatting Suki’s forearm just enough that she stumbles.

When Suki rights herself, Azula is casually removing the mitts and tossing them to the side, stretching her fingers.

“Try to hit me, then,” she challenges liltingly.

Annoyed at her own stumble, and riled up both by the adrenaline and Azula’s continued taunts, Suki takes the bait, lunging forward.

Azula sidesteps her so smoothly, it’s like she’s made of liquid. In the time it takes for Suki to wheel on her to land another hit, Azula has already spun back into her, taking hold of her arm and using her own force to send her flying away from her. Suki barely keeps from stumbling to the floor.

Alright, now she’s angry. Using an opponent’s force against them was the foundation of what she learned in the Kyoshi gym at Ba Sing Se Military Academy, and to have Azula imitate a twisted form of it just to taunt her is infuriating. She lunges forward again, stunned when Azula twists out of the way, smile never leaving her face.

“You’re right, of course, about a punch to the face ending things just fine,” Azula admits. Suki is putting everything she has into her strikes, and Azula has barely broken a sweat. “But your way of doing things lacks imagination. You’re so focused on the body’s limitations, it never occurs to you that a different way of movement is even possible.”

So saying, she carefully evades Suki’s next series of attempted attacks with an impressive display of agility, getting inside her guard and pulling her off balance only to twist her to the side again. True to her oath, she never once hurts Suki—every time she touches her or catches a strike and turns her away, it’s playful, almost like a dance, one that Suki doesn’t know the steps to.

“Your way is practical and grounded,” Azula continues, fluidly evading Suki’s continued onslaught. “But if you want something with a little more imagination…”

Suki’s heart leaps up to her throat, then plummets into her stomach as Azula slants toward her, sweeping her off her feet with her leg. Suki scrambles to her knees, finding that Azula has somehow inexplicably landed on her knees behind her, getting her arm in a lock at her back, with her other hand wrapped gently—almost casually—around her throat.

“You gave your word you wouldn’t hurt me,” Suki warns, panting, feeling her pulse pounding against Azula’s fingers.

She tenses up at the feeling of Azula pressing into her, seeming almost to nuzzle into her hair before edging in closer and pressing her mouth to Suki’s ear. “I wouldn’t dream of it,” she assures her in a low purr that sends Suki’s heart thundering. “I was just giving you a demonstration.”

“By knocking me to my knees.”

“As gently as possible. Why? Are you in pain?” Her tone sends a shiver up Suki’s spine and an almost electric heat zinging traitorously down through her core.

“I’m not exactly comfortable,” she grits out.

“I see.” Azula’s thumb is stroking gently along the side of Suki’s throat, seeming to be both soothing her, and trying to coax out the whimper Suki is doing her best to stifle, like she can feel it building there. “My mistake.”

Suki almost loses her balance as Azula disentangles herself from her, standing gracefully to her feet. The sudden empty coldness of the air against Suki’s back makes her feel like she’s lost something and leaves her sweat-soaked skin chilled. Azula circles around to her front, gazing down at her.

“I like you like this,” she comments, and Suki flushes furiously, kicking her legs out.

Azula drops to the floor in surprise, barely catching herself with her hands.

Suki rolls to her feet, turning her back pointedly and beginning to undo her hand wraps, letting Azula know whatever game she’s been trying to play with her is over. Her pulse is still pounding, hands shaking, her ear seemingly on fire from where Azula had murmured into it, her neck burning from where Azula’s fingers had wrapped so gently around. She isn’t sure how the memory of her touch seems to be searing into her skin, even when, in reality, there had never been even the most fleeting moment of pain.

She breathes slowly, recovering from the confusing sensations, ashamed that even though she feels shaken, part of her is almost excited by the rush that gave her. It’s the adrenaline, she tells herself. That leftover buzzing energy is nothing new, it’s best to ignore it, no matter how much her body seems to be urging her to turn around and continue engaging with Azula, in whatever form that ends up being.

Just adrenaline. She snatches up her water bottle and takes a long drink, keeping her back firmly to the other woman. Proving just how unaffected she is.

“That’s it?” she hears Azula ask behind her.

Suki glances back at her over her shoulder before she can stop herself. The other woman is getting slowly to her feet, dusting off her hands.

“You still haven’t landed a hit,” Azula points out.

“I’m not sure trying to hit you is what Zuko meant when he asked me to protect you,” Suki grumbles, grabbing a towel and dabbing the back of her neck dry.

Azula rolls her eyes. “Fantastic, so I can’t hurt you, you can’t hurt me…how are we supposed to have any fun while we’re here?”

Suki looks her over, not sure whether she’s teasing her or not. It wouldn’t surprise her if Azula was serious—there’s a good chance that the words _hurt_ and _fun_ might be interchangeable to the daughter of the Phoenix Kingpin.

That, or this is supposed to be Azula’s sense of humor.

“You know, even if I could hurt you, I wouldn’t,” Suki tells her guardedly. “Just like I wouldn’t threaten you, or manipulate you, or… _brand_ you, all of which you did to me, for no other reason than that you could get away with it. Not all of us are built like that. Just because you _can_ hurt someone doesn’t give you the right to.”

“Please spare me the lecture,” Azula says with a careless wave of her hand. “I was only joking about our inability to hurt each other. Call it jailbird humor. I have to get my fun where I can, and you’re just about the most fun a girl can have while trapped in a safe house.”

Suki frowns at her, not sure how to respond to that one. “I’m gonna go take a shower,” she finally settles on with as much dignity as she can manage, draping the towel over her shoulder.

“I’ll be here,” Azula says amiably, beginning to stretch, like her encounter with Suki was a simple warm-up before her actual workout.

Suki turns on her heel with a huff, shoulders tight as she makes her way toward the stairs. Her entire body is still humming with excited energy, synapses firing everywhere Azula touched, heat still coiling low in her core. A cold shower is her best move right now if she wants to shock her brain back into functioning and put every renegade part of her body that’s trying to rebel against her better senses back in its proper place.

She turns the water on with a hard jerk of her hand. The end of the week can’t come soon enough.


	6. Chapter 6

Zuko knows that going to June for information has a fifty-fifty shot of either helping him, or hurting him.

On the upside, June is always in it for herself, with no ties to any organization whether legal or illegal, which means her loyalties are invariably to cold, hard cash.

On the downside, June is always in it for herself, with no ties to any organization whether legal or illegal, which means her loyalties are invariably to cold, hard cash.

The bounty hunter is tough as nails, impossible to manipulate, and relentless when it comes to her job—it’s just that that job can change if she’s offered a better deal from someone else. She loves exactly two people in the world, one of which is herself, the other of which is not so much a person as it is a giant blind bloodhound called Nyla. Everyone else can get fucked, as far as June is concerned.

She does come through with better information than anyone else in the city though, and Zuko leaves his meeting with her Monday night feeling equal parts relieved to have some solid understanding of the situation, and incredibly stressed out for it. Par for the course when it comes to June, he guesses.

He returns home wearily, racking his brain for what the hell he’s going to do given the new information June just provided. He knows Element X has been a hot commodity for the past year or so, but he had no idea just how pivotal of a role it played in mapping out territories…and fuck, the Red Lotus gang is getting out of fucking control; at least the Four Families have the decency to abide by certain in-Clan laws and rituals, but the Red Lotus doesn’t seem to give a shit about boundaries, or order, or any systematic control of contraband, and the volatile Element X market is ripe for creating chaos. This whole situation is a clusterfuck and it’s entirely possible that Ozai’s arrest has done more damage than good…

“You’re late,” comes a voice from the couch, and Zuko’s heart leaps up to his throat.

He flips the light switch on the wall, readying himself for a fight—only to find Sokka seated against the cushions, glass of champagne in hand.

“Fuck, Sokka, you scared the shit out of me,” Zuko breathes, putting his hand over his racing heart. “What are you doing here?”

“Um, I broke into your house like a good boyfriend just to set this all up for you,” Sokka says, gesturing around, and Zuko’s attention is drawn to the candles laid out on every surface, an over-abundance of rose petals, champagne, and what Zuko is pretty sure might be oil of some nature.

Zuko sheds his jacket, hanging it uncertainly on the coat rack.

“What’s the occasion?” he asks carefully.

Sokka’s eyebrows raise. “Oh, nothing, just our two year anniversary,” he says. He points at the cushion beside him. “Now sit down so I can romance you, jerk.”

“Fuck,” Zuko breathes, making his way obediently to the couch. He flops down with a guilty wince. “I’m so sorry. I’ve just been so distracted…with Azula, my dad…all this shit…”

Sokka’s expression softens, and he reaches for the bottle of champagne to pour Zuko a glass. Of course Sokka got them champagne, that absolute sap.

“Yeah, I know, babe,” he says, handing it to him and ruffling his hair. “So turn your brain off, drink some crazy over-priced fermented grape juice, and let me make out with your stupid face.”

“I can’t drink if you’re making out with my—” Zuko attempts to point out, but Sokka cuts him off, kissing him _very_ thoroughly in a way that mostly sends Zuko’s attempts at logic right out the window.

“—stupid face,” he finishes once Sokka releases him.

Sokka smirks at him, but his hand is back in his hair, massaging his head. “Your brain’s still on,” he says. “Despite my valiant efforts.” He strokes his thumb across his cheek. “You wanna talk about it?”

Zuko sighs. “It’s not exactly conducive to romance.”

“That’s okay. We can come back to the romance once you’ve gotten whatever’s on your mind out.”

“It’s about my dad.”

“Ah. So _really_ not conducive to romance.”

Zuko takes a pull of his champagne. “I’m worried I made a mistake,” he says quietly.

Sokka sits back a little, giving him some room to organize his thoughts. “How so?”

“When I tipped off my contact with the feds about Ozai’s ownership of the power plant downtown…I don’t know, maybe I didn’t think things through well enough.” Zuko runs his hand over his mouth. “I just should’ve kept to my work with Avatar Security, you know? I’m in the business of protecting people, not…putting bad guys behind bars. That was a stupid line to cross.” He shakes his head. “I just wanted to see him taken down so badly, I got myself involved in exactly what I’ve been trying to _avoid_ for the last ten years. Now I know all this shit about his business, and all this shit I just set in motion by getting him arrested, and I just…I shouldn’t have gotten involved.”

Sokka leans his elbow against the back of the couch thoughtfully. “Why _did_ you get involved with trying to get your dad arrested?” he asks. “You never told me.”

“Azula,” Zuko says. He looks down with a tight smile. “It was the weirdest thing. Couple months ago…you remember when I forgot to get cabbages for that weird dish you were making?”

“It wasn’t weird, it was delicious.”

“It was weird. But I forgot the cabbages and you made me go back to the store…and there she was. I hadn’t seen her in ten years, and she was just there all of a sudden, just buying groceries. Gotta be honest, I didn’t know she even knew how to buy groceries, kinda assumed that was the sort of thing she’d have others do for her.

“But she was with her friend Ty Lee,” he continues, “and they were laughing, and Azula was holding her hand, and she just looked so… _normal._ And happy. And I had the stupidest thought that maybe she’d managed to get out, y’know? Like maybe she did what I did and left my dad and the business and was just free and living her life. But then this guy showed up—I remembered him, he was one of my dad’s thugs. And he said something to her, and this…look…just came over her.” He exhales slowly. “I remembered that look so well. It’s like…electric, but also cold somehow. And she stormed off and it was just so obvious that she was still under my dad’s thumb, and I don’t know, I couldn’t stop thinking about it.”

Sokka’s fingers are in his hair, running through it soothingly.

“I just wanted to help her,” Zuko says quietly. “And I got this stupid…I don’t know…hero idea in my head, like if I took my dad down, she’d somehow magically…whatever. Doesn’t matter. I realized I made a mistake the second I picked her up at the club and brought her home after my dad was arrested. She might be too far gone.”

He takes another pull of his champagne. “Anyway, now, after talking to June,” he continues, shifting gears away from his sister and back to his father, “it’s sounding like this whole Element X thing is a way bigger deal than I thought, and taking my dad out of the game…I mean, I knew that was going to start some major shit, but this is beyond what I’d imagined. Ozai’s plans for the Element X market were bigger than anyone could’ve planned for, and this Red Lotus gang coming up out of nowhere to shake things up…it’s just…a fucking mess. And I did that. I handed over evidence to get my dad out of the picture, when it was none of my business, and I think I made a huge mistake.”

“You did it for your sister,” Sokka says softly. He runs his hand down from Zuko’s jaw to his chest. “You’ve got a good heart, you big softie, it’s part of why I love you so damn much.”

Zuko looks over at him with a huff of a laugh. “I don’t know,” he murmurs. He drops his gaze down for a minute in thought before looking back at Sokka with an uncomfortable smile. “I just hope Azula isn’t driving Suki too crazy. I’m sure she has her hands full.”

“Suki can handle herself,” Sokka assures him with an affectionate squeeze to his shoulder. “Remember, this is the best girl in the entire world we’re talking about. Entire galaxy. Entire universe. There isn’t a single thing our Suki can’t handle with all the grace and badassery of a majestic sexy warrior princess.”

Zuko snorts. Comments like that from Sokka used to bother him—Zuko’s mature enough now to admit that he’s prone to jealousy. Maybe it’s leftover feelings of entitlement he’s never quite been able to shake, maybe it’s just the crushing weight of a lifetime of insecurity, but either way, getting used to Sokka’s continued adoration for Suki took a lot of adjustment for the first few months of seeing him. Zuko’s perspective of breakups has always been that they’re messy, and filled with bitterness and anger. Sometimes violence, if his parents are anything to go by. The fact that Suki and Sokka are still friends—and not just friends, the _best_ of friends—is still a little strange to Zuko.

That casual affection between them bothered the hell out of him when he first started dating Sokka. He was convinced they were still seeing each other in secret, always nudging each other, teasing each other, coming up with pranks, laughing at inside jokes. Sokka had a tendency to sit on Suki’s lap, Suki had a tendency to laugh and jab him in the sides to get him to move…they went to movies together, got drinks together, were in constant contact, no matter what. Zuko was _certain_ they were seeing each other and laughing at him behind his back.

He finally worked up the courage to confront Sokka about it a month after they started dating, practicing a very long, biting speech in his car on the way to the bar to meet him. Of course when he got there, all he was able to do was mumble and get flustered and accidentally show every drop of insecurity he had in him, which was a lot.

And Sokka had laughed. He’d laughed _kindly_ though _,_ hand immediately going to Zuko's wrist and squeezing it reassuringly.

“Listen. Suki’s the best person I know,” he’d said.

“Trust me, you haven’t been subtle about that,” Zuko had grumbled, looking away.

“No listen to me,” Sokka had insisted. “Suki and I…we’ve known each other forever. We’ve been through everything together. And yeah, we dated for a few years, but it’s not like that anymore. She’s my best friend and I love her more than anyone in the whole world. Just…not in a sexy way.”

Zuko had looked back at him, cautiously hopeful.

“I mean, it _was_ sexy,” Sokka amended, and Zuko went back to sulking. “She was _amazing,_ you have no idea. Like fucking…mind-blowingly amazing. Her stamina is insane, she once rode my dick so hard I almost passed out. And, y’know, we were each other’s firsts. We tried everything together. _Everything.”_

“That’s…great, Sokka,” Zuko muttered.

“Seriously. Everything.”

“I really don’t need to know the details.”

“She was an absolute wildcat in bed. And not just in bed, I mean against the wall, on the floor, dining room table…”

“This is a really fun conversation for me.”

“She could’ve single-handedly rewritten the Kama Sutra, no joke.”

Zuko, who’s sexual experience at the time was limited to exactly two people, one of which wasn’t adventurous at all, the other of which had been adventurous in an expressly uncomfortable way, was starting to feel a little uneasy. Like he might not be good enough.

“She was taking this like, ancient martial arts class for a while,” Sokka had continued blithely, like this was all very appropriate conversation to be having in public. “Lots of using ropes and ribbons and things. So she went through this whole phase where she was obsessed with tying me up in all these crazy positions. And pegging me.”

Zuko’s face had turned a pretty impressive shade of red. “Oh.”

“It was super hot.”

“Yeah, I’m…I mean, I’ll bet.”

“I’m not usually into being on the receiving end of things when it comes to guys, but with Suki…she really knew what she was doing.”

“That’s um. Cool.”

Sokka had grinned at him, thumb stroking over his wrist, like this had all been a teasing preamble meant to put him at ease.

“It’s not like that anymore though,” he said. “We were young, we were just figuring out what sex was, so we did just about everything we could think of, and it was great. But that’s not where we’re at anymore. That’s not where _I’m_ at anymore. And, y’know, it was good we were that open with each other. Gave me the courage to tell her I kinda thought I might like dudes the way I like girls.”

Zuko had looked back up at him at that, hearing a note of vulnerability that just about melted him.

“And she said she thought she might kinda like girls the way she likes guys,” Sokka was saying a little more softly. “And we took some time apart, explored different things…and we always kept coming back to each other, but it was different. We came back to each other as friends. It’s what we’re best at.”

He took Zuko’s other hand, squeezing them both with a reassuring smile. “So seriously, when I tell you I love Suki with my whole heart, that’s the truth,” he said. “But it’s not romantic.” He tilted his head teasingly. “And you know what _else_ is the truth, is that I’m kinda crazy about you.”

Zuko’s heart had made a sort of pitter-patter skip and then a stuttering leap. “Yeah?” he croaked.

“Head over heels, baby,” Sokka said with the most charming grin Zuko had ever seen. “And sexy as that jealousy of yours is, there’s no reason for it. You’re it for me.”

It still took Zuko some time to be totally okay with it—he worried for a long time that he wouldn’t be able to live up to Suki’s “wildcat” status. But Sokka didn’t seem to be looking for another Suki; he seemed to be single-mindedly focused on Zuko. He dove headfirst, eyes wide open, and grinning the whole way into their relationship, and Zuko helplessly dove right after him.

The last of Zuko’s insecurities were finally put to rest when the three of them went out drinking one night and Sokka and Suki admitted that when they first started at Avatar Security, they’d made a bet to see who could get Zuko to go out with them first. Zuko turned so red he thought he might die from embarrassment, but he found himself laughing uncontrollably all the same.

These days, Zuko no longer gets insecure when it comes to Sokka. It’s hard to when Sokka practically smothers him with affection every time he gets the chance. He can be playful and sweet, but sometimes aggressive, pinning him to the mattress, nipping and marking him, and Zuko loves every second of it.

He tries to act like he doesn’t, of course, because Sokka has a habit of trying to get him in the most undignified positions at the most inopportune times…but really, Zuko wouldn’t have it any other way.

He loves him best when he’s like this, though, setting his champagne aside and drawing him in with his arms around him, nuzzling into his neck and starting to murmur sweet nothings that are somehow both adoringly romantic, and absolutely filthy.

Sokka’s mouth and hands are enough to take his mind off reality for a bit, and when he takes him to bed, reality seems to cease to exist entirely, and he wakes up warm and sated in the morning with his head on Sokka’s chest.

All it takes is his alarm clock to shatter all those good feelings though, and as he heads off to work, his anxiety returns, heavy as a rock in his gut. He shouldn’t have gotten involved with his father’s business. Should’ve just gone on protecting people from the outside, not dragging himself back into his father’s world.

His sister’s world.

He plunks himself down at his desk with a heavy sigh. There’s nothing he can do about that now, what’s done is done.

At the very least, he hopes Azula isn’t driving Suki completely up the wall.


	7. Chapter 7

Azula is driving Suki completely up the wall. On so many levels.

First, it’s when Azula busts out the file Zuko put together on her and starts pointing out all the inaccuracies, perching herself on the table beside Suki to show her.

“It’s 6 motorcycles,” she tells Suki. “Not 16. I’m not completely insane.”

Suki tries to ignore her.

Azula runs her finger along another page. “I never robbed those stores,” she murmurs. “I _organized_ the robberies, I’m not some common thief. I’ll admit to hot-wiring a few cars when I was younger, but I was _fourteen,_ it was a phase.”

Suki rolls her eyes and attempts to block her out.

“Half of the fires in this file weren’t even started by me,” Azula goes on, thumbing through a large section of the file, simply labeled ARSON.

“There—that one?” Azula says, pushing it in front of Suki’s face and pointing. “I was on a yacht in Bali when that happened. I swear, you set _one_ school on fire, and all of a sudden people blame you for every minor act of arson within the city limits.”

She flips the page, skimming for a moment, then laughs. “Okay, now _that_ fire I did start. That was a pretty funny story, actually…”

“Azula, I’m trying to eat breakfast,” Suki interrupts, dropping her spoon into her cereal bowl in frustration.

Then it’s the gym. Any time Suki tries to work out, she is inevitably joined by Azula. And Azula seems very invested in “helping her.”

In other words, she taunts her, tries to get her to spar, tries to help her improve her form if she’s at the heavy bag—which, by the way, Suki did _not_ ask for. She sidles up behind her, trails her fingers down her back to get her to straighten or bend. She rests her hands on her hips, thumbs sweeping smoothly across the divots of her lower back, pushing or pulling as she sees fit to better align her.

And yes, those tips actually do help, but that’s not the point. The point is that she’s barely clothed, heat is radiating off her skin, and she’s touching Suki. And Suki’s pulse has taken to ramping up to perilous speeds any time Azula’s hands are on her. Which is a lot.

It’s especially bad because when her pulse picks up pace, it’s not from fear or anger. Suki refuses to call it what it might actually be, instead making a very conscious effort to appear completely unruffled when Azula squeezes just the slightest bit at her hips, or when her fingers skim just a little under her shirt to drag along her skin, making her muscles jump beneath her hands. And always, once she has her in the right position, she trails her fingers along her hair, and murmurs such awful things as “Beautiful” or “Perfect” or “That’s my girl.” Which, in addition to making Suki’s pulse race, seems to constrict her chest so that breathing becomes more difficult as well.

Then there’s Azula’s complete lack of regard for privacy. She wanders into Suki’s room whenever she feels like it, wakes her up in the morning because she needs a change of clothes and refuses to wear the same thing twice, and she insists on having first pick of what she’ll be wearing. Most of Suki’s wardrobe consists of practical, earthy-colored clothes, so it’s not like there’s a whole lot to choose from, but she still manages to single out the things Suki likes best and takes them for herself.

Four days into their stay at the safe house, Azula discovers Sokka’s wall of security footage in Suki’s closet. She seems completely unbothered by it, even as Suki scrambles belatedly to hide it from her. She simply points at the blacked-out screens.

“Where do these show?”

“Bathrooms,” Suki answers, heat rushing to her face. “Showers.”

“And the showers are blacked out because…?”

“Just trying to respect your privacy.”

Azula shrugs one shoulder up. “Your loss,” is all she says, before exiting the closet like she doesn’t have a care in the world, taking Suki’s lipstick on her way out.

Then there’s Azula’s utter absence of shame. Suki has walked in on her naked four times in three days, and she’s having a very hard time believing that’s accidental.

On Thursday afternoon, she finally confronts Azula in the kitchen.

“I know what you’re doing,” she says.

Azula’s eyebrows raise curiously, and the corner of her lips curve upward in a pleased smile. “What am I doing?” she asks.

Asked that bluntly, Suki realizes she isn’t sure how to answer. She steadies herself. She doesn’t remember the last time someone made her feel so off-balance. It’s not like she’s shy, certainly not prudish or naive. She can say this plainly.

“You’re trying to…” she waves her hand awkwardly, “…seduce me,” she says, which she mentally notes down as one of the most uncomfortable sentences she’s ever said to a person.

Something flickers behind Azula’s eyes and her jaw twitches like she wasn’t expecting Suki to just…come out and say it.

Suki guesses she can understand Azula’s slip in cockiness—if Suki were trying to seduce someone, she probably wouldn’t like being called on it either. Wasn’t seduction supposed to be all about subtlety, dancing around something without addressing it with words before…passion exploded of its own accord?

Or something?

That’s what Sokka’s romance novels have always hinted at anyway.

Suki can see annoyance flare in Azula for a split second, like some wayward arc of electricity she wasn’t quite able to contain. It subsides quickly enough, but there’s an obvious shift in Azula’s mood. She’s not as in control as she was mere seconds before.

“You flatter yourself,” she says finally.

The petulance in her tone is almost funny.

 _“You_ flatter me,” Suki counters.

That wayward arc of annoyance again. Suki can almost see it crackling across Azula’s skin.

“And I know you’re bored,” Suki continues. “But I’m not interested in being your plaything for the next 24 hours we have left here, so if you could—”

“If I were trying to seduce someone, it wouldn’t be because I was _bored_ ,” Azula interrupts sharply, and Suki is surprised to note that the other woman seems genuinely offended. “I don’t waste my time on things I don’t actually want.”

Suki tilts her head. “So is that a confession? You admit that’s what you’re doing?”

Azula rounds the island counter and takes a step toward her. Suki takes a step back, finding herself very close to the wall. “What would you do if I was?” Azula asks.

“I’d say what I said before—I’m not interested in being toyed with.”

“And I just told you I don’t do things out of boredom. I’m not toying with you.”

“Then you have an angle, and just like I’m not interested in being your plaything, I’m also not interested in being your pawn.”

Frankly, Suki’s pretty proud of herself for putting the right words in the right order when Azula is freely admitting to trying to seduce her, and she makes to leave while she still has the last word.

Her triumphant exit is halted before it even begins when Azula casually places her hand on the wall beside Suki, effectively barring her from leaving. Suki turns back to her, back bumping against the wall.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re actually of no real use to me at present,” Azula says. “Any information I need to get what I want, I already have. I have no need for you to be a pawn of any kind at the moment, and as I’ve said multiple times now, I don’t put effort into things I don’t actually want. I’m never bored, because I’m never lacking for important things to do, so I have no need to toy with you to keep myself occupied. I’ll admit I had considered using you for certain things, but they’ve recently become moot and I no longer find you necessary toward my grander goals.”

“Then what do you have to gain from all this?”

Azula shrugs with a small smirk. “The pleasure of your company.”

Suki laughs and presses herself off the wall, intending to weave around Azula, but now Azula’s other hand goes to her waist, gently pushing her back in place. Back where she wants her.

“Is that really so difficult for you to believe?” Azula asks, and the hand that walled her in now glides up so she can stroke it along the ends of Suki’s hair.

Suki flinches as her nail scratches her jaw. “That you’re doing all this with no ulterior motive?” she says, forcing her voice to remain steady. “Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re not stupid. You have to know that I hate everything you stand for. I hate everything you’ve done to me. I hate that you’ve threatened people I care about. I actually hate everything about you.”

Her words reinforce her conviction, and she lifts her head stubbornly.

Unfortunately, Azula seems to enjoy the change. “Everything?” she teases, fingers trailing along her jaw down her throat, thumb brushing against the hollow, making Suki inhale sharply. “Are you sure?”

Suki’s heart is hammering against the inside of her chest. “Yes,” she says, voice coming out hoarse.

Azula clicks her tongue. “That’s a shame. I happen to sort of like you.” The hand at her waist begins to wander, dragging the hem of her shirt up just the slightest bit so that her thumb grazes against the burn on Suki’s side. “I wouldn’t have given that mark to just anyone.”

Suki jumps involuntarily at the light touch as if it still burns after all this time, and clamps her hand hard around Azula’s wrist, stopping her from wandering any further.

“Touch me again, and I’ll consider that a threat,” she warns, keeping her voice even, and quiet.

Azula looks at her closely for a moment, a muscle tightening in her jaw, but she obediently drops her hands away from Suki, taking a step back.

Suki exhales slowly, as if she hadn’t been able to breathe that whole time, realizing as cooler air rushes between them just how close Azula was, how much heat she radiated, how much pressure she created simply by being near her.

She smooths down the front of her shirt and straightens forward away from the wall, trying to act as if she was perfectly in control this whole time.

“You wouldn’t know the first thing about trying to seduce me anyway,” she says lightly, making for the doorway. “You’re too used to getting what you want.”

Azula seems to mull that over for a moment, before calling after her, “For my own edification…how _would_ someone go about seducing you?”

Suki stops, looking back over her shoulder at her with eyebrows raised. “Well, first of all they wouldn’t _seduce_ me,” she says. “It doesn’t need to be that intricate. I don’t like being manipulated. Drinks, maybe going out dancing, or if there’s a beach nearby…candlelight never hurts. No mind games. Given that you’re incapable of doing anything without manipulating someone, I’m afraid you’re out of luck.”

She leaves it at that, thankful that Azula doesn’t call after her again, or try to follow her.

*

Suki was foolish to think that would be the end of things. That evening, annoyed, exhausted, and thankful as all hell that she’ll be out of this stupid house by this time tomorrow, she makes her final sweep of the first floor, making sure for the thousandth time that there are no weak spots in the doors or windows that could be used as a gateway either in or out.

She pauses as she starts for the stairs. Down the hall, soft yellow light glows from one of the rooms. She steels herself and edges slowly toward it, grabbing something long and thin off one of the side tables in the living room as she goes. She doesn’t know what it is, but if it’s one thing she’s good at, it’s turning any household item into a weapon.

She rounds the corner, whipping the mysterious item in her hand out, startled when it opens into a fan.

She becomes even more startled when she sees the room she’s made her way into. It’s the pool room, lit entirely by what Suki has to believe are upwards of a hundred candles which reflect in the blue depths of the water. Maybe not the _best_ idea, though she supposes that if there’s this much fire, the pool room is the best place to have it.

Her attention is drawn away from the reflection of the candles dancing in the water, and up to where Azula is making her way toward her with two bottles of beer. Suki closes the fan and gingerly accepts the beer Azula offers her.

“What is all this?” Suki asks suspiciously.

“This is me not-seducing you,” Azula tells her. She points. “Candlelight. Drinks. No beaches, I’m afraid, as you’ve decided to lock us in this hell house, so the pool will have to do. And I’m assuming since you recently told me I wasn’t allowed to touch you, dancing’s off the table. So. This is as good as it’s going to get.”

So saying, she turns to the pool and sits on the corner, dipping her legs in the water. She casts her gaze over her shoulder at Suki, and pats the side of the pool beside her. “Come on,” she says.

Suki hesitates for a moment, but curiosity gets the better of her and she follows Azula’s summons. She doesn’t sit right next to her as indicated, settling herself instead on the other side of the corner so she can keep her eyes on Azula. Azula smiles at her, like she fully expected her to choose that exact place. Suki rolls up her pants, and dips her legs in the water, too, body rigid and ready for whatever trap Azula is setting.

“So this is really nice and everything,” she says, “but I’m still not going to have sex with you. You have to know that.”

“Relax, I’m not going to try anything,” Azula says with a roll of her eyes. “Not at this very moment, at any rate.”

Suki takes a sip of her beer. “Not so great at taking no for an answer, are you,” she observes.

“On the contrary, that’s exactly why I have you here,” Azula tells her. “You’re the second person in the last week to say no to me, which, frankly, has never happened to me before. I seem to be on a losing streak, which in addition to being incredibly frustrating, does happen to strike me as mildly intriguing. Forgive a girl for giving things one more shot before our time is up and you leave me to whatever punishment my brother has in store for me.”

Suki regards her for a long time, taking in the way the light from the candles flickers across her skin, reflecting in her eyes, catching in her dark hair. She knows why _she_ rejected Azula, but on a purely aesthetic level, she can’t imagine why anyone else would.

She leans back on her hand. “Alright, I’ll bite,” she says. “But only because after tomorrow I never have to see your face again, and maybe I’m a little curious. Who else said no to you?”

Azula looks pleased that she’s decided to give in and talk to her. “You know her, actually,” she answers. “You remember my friend Ty Lee—she helped me break into your school and left you so appealingly incapacitated.”

The girl from the photo album in Azula’s closet. The girl who brought out something fragile that Azula is utterly lacking now.

“I remember,” Suki says.

“Last week, we went out for drinks, and she told me she was engaged,” Azula says. “To this absolute moron, you’d hate him too. He’s the son of one of my father’s men, good for heavy lifting but not a braincell to be found. And vain, constantly making muscles at himself in his own reflection. Self-proclaimed straight, but I guarantee he’d turn gay for himself. Naturally, I tried to convince Ty Lee to break up with him, but as soon as I tried to kiss her, she pushed me away, and I’m having a very hard time understanding why.”

Suki gives a surprised laugh, because Azula seems genuinely puzzled.

“Azula, your best friend told you she was engaged, and the first thing you did was try to get in her pants. That _is_ the reason why she rejected you. Do you really not hear yourself?”

“Please. What she and Chan have isn’t sustainable,” Azula says, waving her off. “I was just trying to spare her unnecessary trouble down the line when this thing inevitably blows up in their faces.”

“You were trying to _spare_ her?” Suki asks, one eyebrow lifting.

“Well I don’t want her running to me crying. I have enough on my plate without having to deal with her tears. It’s always my responsibility to calm her down. She’s exhausting.”

“Why is it your responsibility?”

Azula blinks. “What do you mean?”

“Ty Lee doesn’t have any other friends she could go to?”

“Of course she has other friends, she’s practically swimming in them. Everyone adores dear Ty Lee.”

“Then why do _you_ have to be the one who calms her down?”

Azula looks dumbstruck by the question. “I just know her better than anyone else does,” she says like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

Suki tilts her head, a little amazed that Azula, for all her cunning and all her general displays of cold intelligence, might actually be a little bit stupid.

“So what I’m hearing is that you _care_ about her,” Suki says pointedly, “and you want to protect her. Even if it’s in the most misguided way possible.”

“I don’t care about her, I want to keep her intact,” Azula corrects sharply. “She’s gentle, which is a rarity in this world. I enjoy collecting rare things, and I’d prefer it if others didn’t break them.”

Suki fixes her with a look. “I don’t think it’s that simple,” she says. “I think you were in love with her at one point. Maybe still are.”

Azula looks at her blankly, then scoffs. “That kind of love isn’t a real thing,” she says.

“Love isn’t _real?”_ Suki echoes, unable to keep herself from laughing, because that’s easily one of the stupidest things she’s ever heard a person say.

Azula frowns. “Perhaps I misspoke,” she says. “Love is a series of imaginary attachments people make when they’re afraid to be alone. Love is fear with better marketing.”

“You’ve really never loved _anyone?”_ Suki asks doubtfully. “What about your father? You two are close, aren’t you?”

“What we have isn’t love, it’s an understanding,” Azula says. “It’s a bargain. A contract.”

“Based on fear?”

“Based on power.”

Suki laces her fingers around her knee, leaning back uncomfortably. “That’s really sad.”

“It’s not sad, it’s reality. Here.”

Azula undoes the tie at her hair, pulling it loose and allowing her hair to cascade down in dark waves Suki can’t help but be fascinated by, unconsciously wondering what it would feel like to run her fingers through those dark tresses.

She redirects her attention as Azula takes Suki’s beer and places it a few inches away from her own, securing her ribbon between them, joined by a couple woven bracelets she frees from her wrists. She points. “Here are your attachments,” she says. “In your imagined world, you see these attachments and think strength, and connection. But real life isn’t like that.”

She picks up one of the candles. “Life is volatile, people even more so, and when things get heated, it’s very easy for those attachments to be burned away.” She holds the candle to one of the woven bracelets—apparently not a very treasured item—and it begins to burn slowly.

“Now the burning away and loss of attachments is unfortunate enough,” Azula continues as the small flame makes its way across. “But the worst part isn’t the fire, it’s the smoke that’s left behind once that connection is gone. Smoke clouds the senses, makes it difficult to see, to perceive the world for what it really is.”

She holds the candle one by one to the other pieces of jewelry connecting the bottles, and they light slowly. “The more attachments you have, the more there is to burn—and the more there is to burn, the more smoke there is to choke on. You risk losing your senses surrounded by that much.”

She sets the candle aside and blows the flames out, gaze returning to Suki. “Of course my father and I aren’t so foolish as to believe we can exist _entirely_ without attachments,” she says, “that’s not realistic. But we can form the right ones for the right reasons at the right times, and then burn them ourselves when need be.”

Suki searches her face, hoping that playful smirk will return and she’ll reveal that was just a joke made in poor taste. But Azula’s expression is placid and without humor, as if she is calmly explaining what two-plus-two is to a toddler. Suki can almost see it, the way Ozai must have explained this to Azula when she was young, maybe with the exact same words, using the exact same visual.

“Every word you just said was sadder than the last,” Suki tells her, feeling an uncomfortable twist of what she thinks might actually be pity deep in her gut.

Azula looks, for all intents and purposes, completely baffled by this statement.

“But I guess I shouldn’t be surprised your father put those ideas in your head,” Suki continues. “So let’s go back to Ty Lee.”

“Again, not love,” Azula says carelessly, seemingly trying to save face. “She amused me, that’s all. In various capacities. Particularly in bed. You wouldn’t believe the positions she bent herself into for me. Whatever I wanted her to do, she would do it, without question, without protest.”

“And what did you do when she rejected you?” Suki asks.

“Excuse me?”

“After Ty Lee told you she was engaged, and you tried to seduce her, and she rejected you…what did you do?”

“I got abducted by my brother and dumped into your lap,” Azula drawls with an insipid smile.

“Sounds like you got clumsy,” Suki says. “Like an attachment was burned away from you and you got lost in all that terrible smoke.” She takes her beer back. “You loved her.”

Azula’s eyes narrow. “I owned her,” she corrects.

“You loved her, and you fell victim to that ridiculous metaphor you just made. She broke your heart, maybe more than once.”

Azula looks livid.

“Don’t worry,” Suki says, taking a swig of her beer and looking across the pool. “I won’t tell your father.”

Azula is silent for a long time, then says, “If I admit to having had a schoolgirl crush on her when I was a teenager, will you let go of this idiotic notion?”

Suki shrugs. “Sure.”

“It was a long time ago that I had those sorts of…feelings…for her. What happened last week was just leftover echoes. I don’t…want her…the way I used to.”

“Well good. You probably don’t deserve her if she’s as gentle as you claim.”

Azula gives her a cold smile. “I think that’s more than enough about me,” she says. She leans back, making herself comfortable. “Tell me about you.”

Suki laughs. “What about me?”

“Aside from all your moral judgements about me, I don’t know much about you,” Azula points out. “Military school dropout after I helped remove the scales from your eyes—you’re welcome, by the way—good at tackling people and punching inanimate objects, friends with my brother in spite of losing your ex-boyfriend to him, _employed_ by my brother for god only knows what reason…anything else you feel like sharing with me? If this is our last night before we part ways for good and I get my comeuppance, I think it’d be nice to get to know you a bit better.”

“No you don’t,” Suki says. “No matter what you said in the beginning, you’re still just trying to…” She waves her hand.

“Seduce you. You can say the word, no need to be shy about it. You’re the one who drew attention to it in the first place.”

Suki focuses hard on the reflection of candlelight on the opposite end of the pool.

“Why exactly is the idea of me seducing you so abhorrent to you?”

Suki laughs, looking back at her. “Are you serious?”

Azula waves her hand dismissively. “Alright, other than the fact that you claim to hate me—which I doubt, by the way. Don’t think I missed the fact that you leaned into me every time I touched you, or that your breath caught any time I got close, or that your cheeks are flushed even as we speak.”

Suki feels them grow even hotter at Azula’s words, and can hardly believe the amount of times her own body has betrayed her in the last week.

“You’re allowed to be physically attracted to me,” Azula continues. “You can admit that at least, I won’t think less of you for it.”

Suki doesn’t know what to say, and even if she did, she would probably be incapable of saying it, as her heart seems to have relocated itself to her throat and is pounding furiously against her.

“Don’t tell me you’ve never had sex with someone you were physically attracted to, but didn’t mesh with personality-wise.”

“I have,” Suki says. “It’s just that none of them were heir to a literal criminal empire.”

Azula considers her for a moment, fingers drumming against the edge of the pool. “So that’s a definite deal-breaker for you then?” she asks finally.

Suki stares at her. “Yes, Azula. That’s a deal-breaker for me.”

Azula hums, flicking her gaze across the pool. “I think you’re just worried you’d enjoy it too much,” she says agreeably. “That I’d somehow damage that sense of moral superiority you wear so proudly.”

“I think you give yourself too much credit,” Suki mutters, bristling. “Given everything you’ve done to me, I think you might have a kind of fundamental misunderstanding of what I like.”

Azula laughs, and it’s genuine, and frustratingly arresting. “Alright, if you’re that incorruptible, kiss me and then tell me I have a ‘fundamental misunderstanding’ of what you like,” she challenges, voice like velvet.

Now, the obvious response to this is a very firm _no._

Unfortunately, Suki has never been good at resisting a dare. She’s wound up in more scrapes than she can count simply because of her mind’s inconvenient need to prove people wrong. She only met Sokka because at 10 years old, she overheard him talking to his friends at lunch about how a girl could never take him in a fight, and she hauled off and decked him in the face.

That competitiveness has landed her frequent detentions all throughout her childhood, a broken arm her freshman year of college, and—fairly recently—a totaled car when Toph made an ill-advised bet with her.

She has apparently taken too long answering, because Azula is scooting around the corner of the pool so she can sit next to her.

Suki angles her head back warningly, but Azula seems content to wait for her lead. True to her word, she doesn’t so much as allow their shoulders to touch.

“I need a yes or a no, angel,” Azula prompts softly, lips quirked.

Coming from anyone else, that would have sounded like she was asking for her permission. But because it’s Azula, it’s clear that it isn’t so much a request for permission as it is a demand for a reaction, any kind of reaction. Only Azula could make asking for permission something closer to a command.

The problem is that it works, because Suki hears herself uttering a barely-audible “Yes” before her mind has the chance to stop her. “But only to prove you wrong,” she adds quickly.

The most fleeting of triumphant smiles flickers across Azula’s lips before her fingers are lifting slowly to thread back through Suki’s hair, crushing it in her grasp and pulling her gently in.

Suki realizes her mistake far too late. She had expected Azula to be domineering in the way she kissed—she certainly hasn’t held back from taking anything else she wants.

Instead, she eases her into the kiss, slow and soft at first, coaxing her, getting her to relax, to become pliant.

And Suki does become pliant. She melts almost the second Azula’s lips are on hers, resolve utterly dissolving when Azula finally sweeps her tongue along the seam of her lips, getting her to open up for her. She finds herself sighing almost with relief as Azula deepens the kiss, like she’d been unaware of how much she needed this to happen.

Almost as if she heard the thought _need,_ Azula shifts her approach, becoming markedly more controlling. Suki follows her lead breathlessly, realizing she’d been stupid to believe Azula would actually remain soft with her—despite the unwavering gentleness, there’s a barely-contained spark of aggression simmering just under the surface of her movements as her hands begin to wander, something completely predatory that has Suki quickly becoming undone. Azula’s tongue in her mouth is devilish, and she draws breath from her exactly the way she wants, periodically breaking the connection just enough for Suki to hitch in desperate snatches of air before going on the attack again. Suki’s fingers are suddenly burying in her hair to pull her impossibly closer, and Azula drags her fingers down her arm, hand snaking its way up her inner thigh.

Suki is unable to contain a whimper as arousal begins to pool traitorously between her legs, and Azula hums against her lips, a distinctly self-satisfied sound that should make Suki angry, but just generates another rush of arousal, running through her like an electric current.

She’s just about lost most of her ability to think clearly, when Azula makes the mistake of drifting her hand up under her shirt, fingers grazing against the burn mark on her side.

Suki pulls back abruptly, seizing hold of Azula’s arm to stop her. Azula’s gaze flies to hers, eyes dark with lust, breath heavy, and Suki thinks with some satisfaction that she was beginning to lose herself, too.

That satisfaction isn’t enough to drown out her better senses this time, though. It’s like clockwork. Every time Azula touches the burn mark she gave her, it seems to trigger sense to come flooding back to Suki, which—thank god for that, at least. It’s a blessing in disguise, a constant reminder of the terrible things Azula has done.

She leans away, letting go of Azula’s arm, and Azula watches her with unreadable eyes, breath slowing. The fact that that insufferable smirk is nowhere to be found makes Suki think Azula has reached the same conclusion; the memory of how that burn scar was brought about is always going to stand between them.

“I think you should go,” Suki says quietly.

Azula lingers just a split second too long before pushing back and getting to her feet. All that electricity seems to go with her, its absence making Suki shiver. She watches Azula make her way to the door, realizing with a stab of awkwardness that she now has a hundred or so candles to blow out herself.

“I’m not sorry for that, you know,” Azula says from the doorway, and Suki looks up at her in confusion, not sure whether she means for the kiss or the burn, or why either should matter.

Before Suki can ask, Azula turns on her heel, leaving the room cold.

*

Suki has never been so happy to see Sokka’s beaten up old jeep before. She waits eagerly in the foyer the following morning, jumping at the screech and clunk of metal throughout the house as Sokka unlocks it from his own control system while standing in the middle of the driveway with Zuko, concern etched across both their features.

The second the house is unlocked, they make their way swiftly up the drive. Sokka practically kicks the door in, and the moment he steps foot in the house, Suki tackles him in a grateful hug. He stiffens for a moment in surprise, then clutches back, but his body is rigid and tense and wonderfully protective. She breathes him in, relieved to have something real, something that isn’t just this house and Azula’s heated, overwhelming presence.

“Why was the house on lockdown?” he asks urgently. “Are you okay?”

“Where’s my sister?” Zuko adds, looking similarly ready to go on the offensive.

“I’m fine, she’s fine,” Suki assures them quickly, pulling away from Sokka, and taking Zuko’s arm reassuringly. “She was just a little hellbent on getting out the first night, so I put us on lockdown just to be safe. And then I…sort of kept us that way. And broke the control. Sorry, Sokka.”

Sokka stares down at her, something seeming to cause him the slightest amount of pain way in the back of his brain. “That’s fine,” he says, voice high-pitched and strained enough to make it abundantly clear that it’s not quite fine. “Just a couple hundred thousand dollars down the drain and a few hundred hours of my life I’ll never get back, but that’s fine. Totally fine. Long as you’re safe, that’s all that matters.”

Suki smiles guiltily and squeezes him close again.

“So where is she?” Zuko asks, clearly trying not to seem too on edge, and failing completely.

“She’s—”

_sulking_

“—in her room, I think,” Suki answers.“She actually hasn’t come down yet, she might not be…feeling…that great.” She beckons them all the way inside. “Come on, I’ll get you some tea, you can tell me where things are at on your end.” She points at the door as Sokka begins to follow her. “Maybe keep that locked, though,” she advises.

“Right,” Sokka says, quickly locking it behind himself.

“So. Was she...how was she?” Zuko asks her as the water comes to a boil, looking like he’s bracing himself for the worst.

Suki doesn’t exactly know how to answer that question.

“She was…mostly well-behaved,” she says carefully as she sets three mugs on the counter. “But for sort of complicated reasons.”

She looks at Sokka, who cocks his head curiously. He well knows the story of Ba Sing Se Military Academy being partially burned down, and Suki’s afraid that if he ever found out Azula was the one responsible for it, he might do something stupid. And if he ever tried to do something stupid…his ass would be handed to him. Azula could pick him apart.

Suki turns back to Zuko. “I just don’t know if your whole…rehabilitation idea is going to work for her,” she says apologetically. “She’s impulsive, she’s aggressive, she doesn’t seem to have any remorse for anything she’s done…I know you want to give her a chance, but honestly, Zuko, she might be beyond what you…”

“I know,” Zuko says. He sighs. “I know. I’ve been thinking about it a lot and you’re right, it was a bad idea.”

“It was a sweet idea,” Sokka says.

“It was a stupid idea,” Zuko says firmly. “I’m thinking the best thing we can do now is start building a solid case against her. Get the evidence we need linking her to whatever we can and get it to my contact in the feds, just like I did with my dad. We can make it as clean as possible, keep things in the right hands, play it straight. I don’t want her getting dragged through all the crap my dad’s being dragged through. We get her on something simple, and leave it at that. She’ll be locked up, and she’ll be safe.”

Suki is at least relieved to find that Zuko is starting to listen to reason. On the other hand…

“It’s gonna take time to build a case against her,” she points out. She begins pouring the tea, doling out their respective mugs. “You got lucky when it came to that power plant contract your dad signed into, but with her…”

“No, I know. Azula’s gonna be harder to pin down,” Zuko agrees, blowing on his tea. “And if she manages to somehow convince people our dad manipulated her…which, in a way, I mean, he did…but she sure as hell took control of things herself…I could just see her gaining favor if she goes for the pity play. And depending on how many of my dad’s men she has in her pocket, and how many she has planted in whatever law firms she needs…it could be tough. Tougher than Ozai.”

He sets his tea down. “Anyway, in the meantime,” he continues, “we’ll still have to keep an eye on her.”

Suki taps her fingers uncomfortably against her mug. “Keep an eye on her how, exactly?” she asks.

“Well we’ll keep her here for now,” Zuko says, and Suki’s heart sinks. “If you two have sort of a rapport going, I think we’ll keep you on as her main protection.”

 _Of course we will_ , Suki thinks with slowly gathering dread.

“I’ve got some updates for you, though,” Zuko goes on. “Just so you’re not flying blind, I’ve got some names, some organizations, people we’re trying to get as much info on as we can. I’ve got June tracking down the people who seem like they’ll be the biggest threats to Azula, and I’ve got Jet shaking out whatever he can by the docks…”

“You’ve got Jet?” Sokka interrupts, and the air suddenly seems to get a little icy. “You didn’t tell me you looped Jet in on this.”

Zuko sighs. “Listen, I know Jet’s a dick…”

“Jet isn’t a dick, he’s a fucking sociopath,” Sokka corrects.

“A sociopath with connections,” Zuko says. “June’s great muscle, but Jet’s got the contacts we need.”

Sokka grumbles under his breath, and Suki pats his shoulder sympathetically. She’s never met Jet personally, only knows that he’s Katara’s ex, and an absolute scumbag if what Sokka says about him is true.

Zuko reaches into his bag and pulls out a binder packed to the brim with notes and pictures and various documents of all kinds. Suki can’t help but find it a little endearing that he’s a bit of a nerd with a bit of an obsession with color-coded folders and binders.

“So this is kinda what we’re looking at,” he tells her, laying it flat on the table. “Before he was arrested, my father had a shipment of Element X scheduled for delivery—we _think_ it was meant to go to the power plant, but given the sting that went down, it’s likely switched locations. Anyone looking to get a hand in whatever deals my father was cutting is going to have all eyes on that delivery, and if we can get them out of the picture…we get rid of the main threats to my sister. I’m not suggesting we get involved directly, but if we can at least ID the major players and cut things down to smaller pieces, things should be a little safer for her.”

Suki chews on her lip, hating to ask, dreading the answer, but it's becoming a matter of some anxiety to her.

“How long do you anticipate the two of us having to stay up here?” she asks.

Zuko and Sokka look at each other.

“I mean, I can’t give an exact date, but I’m hoping not more than a couple—“

His estimation is broken off by the sound of a car engine roaring to life outside.

The three of them glance at each other briefly, then rush for the foyer, unlocking the door and yanking it open just in time to see Sokka’s car disappear down the drive in a cloud of dust and exhaust.

“—minutes,” Zuko finishes, eyes wide as he gazes after it.

Sokka has shouldered past the two of them, running at full speed after the car in nothing but his socks, even as it peels out of sight and vanishes down the long winding road. Suki charges after, making for her own car, skidding to a halt on the painful gravel when she sees that all four tires have been slashed. She looks back out toward Sokka who is trotting back to them in a stupor, red-faced and out of breath, pointing behind him.

“Azula,” he pants. “How the—Azula—in my car—took my car—how’d she…?”

Suki shuts her eyes, several things falling into place at once.

Firstly, Azula’s claim that at fourteen, she had a sort of nasty habit of hot-wiring cars.

Secondly, Azula’s discovery of the security footage in Suki’s closet, along with the knowledge that the bathrooms and showers were blacked out.

Thirdly, Azula’s claim that everything she needed to get what she wanted, she already had.

And fourthly, the knowledge that in order to get in, Zuko and Sokka had needed to unlock the house, and disable the alarms from the outside. Even if it was unlocked for no more than a minute or so, with the three of them standing in the doorway, all it would take was that one minute for Azula to slip into one of the blacked-out bathrooms, wriggle her way out through one of the windows, and make a beeline for Sokka’s car.

Zuko’s hand goes immediately to his pocket, pulling out his cell and beginning to thumb through his contacts.

“What are you doing?” Sokka asks.

“Calling Katara, what’s it look like?”

“No cell service up here,” Sokka reminds him.

The three of them stare back out at the slowly-settling dust on the drive, none of them quite able to admit just how stupid they’d all been.

“I guess we can…walk down…to where there’s service,” Zuko says slowly.

“I don’t know about all this ‘we’ business,” Sokka grumbles. “You got us all into this, why don’t you walk down and call a cab for me and Suki?”

Zuko gives him a sharp look, and Sokka scowls. _“Fine,”_ he says. “We’ll walk down together. But you’re carrying me if my feet get tired.”

Zuko huffs, looking absolutely furious with himself, and the three of them return shame-faced to the house to collect their shoes. Sokka pokes around as he waits for Suki to retrieve hers from upstairs, like he’s concerned Azula might have rewired the whole house in order to make all of his boobytraps go off at once.

When Suki's ready, he points toward the pool room.

“What’s with all the candles?” he asks suspiciously.

Suki flushes bright red, and pulls him along out the door. “Beats me,” she mutters, and the three of them begin the long trudge down the mountain.


	8. Chapter 8

An updated list of annoying things in Azula’s life right now:

-She has to escape the so-called “safe house” before getting the chance to eat breakfast

-After climbing out the bathroom window, she lands hard on the ground and skins the palm of her hand

-Her getaway vehicle—the jeep belonging, she believes, to dear Sokka—is a piece of junk, nearly out of gas, and at the bottom of the mountain it blows a tire

-When she reaches the outskirts of Republic City, it blows a second tire

-Hides the stupid thing in an alley before it breaks down completely, and has an unpleasant altercation with a raccoon

-Stupidly checks her pockets for her phone, then remembers it was either confiscated by Zuko, or possibly destroyed last week

-Has to walk several blocks to find a phone booth

-Discovers the phone booth is out of service

-Decides, fuck it, she’ll _walk_ home even though it’ll be a good hour-and-a-half trek from where she is and it’s nearing 95 degrees with what she has to believe is somehow 10,000% humidity—she’s never been one to shy away from the heat, but this is ridiculous

-And as a particularly aggravating footnote, the entire walk home, rather than plotting out her next steps in reinstating her place as the Firelord, she keeps getting distracted by that gnawing annoyance that is her failure to properly seduce Suki before making her escape. That’s going to bug her for a _very_ long time.

Fortunately, when she finally arrives at the golden wrought-iron gates of the Sozin estate, she is ushered swiftly and respectfully inside by the gatekeeper. The barest hint of confusion passes over his face as he takes in her appearance, but he wisely keeps his thoughts to himself, and asks only if she needs his assistance with anything.

Azula has never needed anyone’s assistance with anything. She knows it’s a sign of respect and an expected requirement of the guard’s job to ask, but the question irks her nevertheless.

Add that to the list of annoying things that have happened in Azula’s life today.

She makes her way up the wide marble staircase and through the sprawling east wing to her room, making sure not to show the slightest hint of exhaustion despite her hellish day so far. Her bathroom is a welcome sight; her reflection less so. She’s covered in sweat, covered in dust from the road, covered in general city grime, and both her shirt and pants have various minor rips in them. Fortunately, they belong to Suki, but still. Appearances are half the battle when it comes to controlling this expansive of a criminal empire, and her current appearance is not what she should be presenting if she wants to seize power.

That said, she peels out of Suki’s clothes and turns on the shower, keeping it cold. She needs to refocus on what’s important, needs to shock herself back into her life, start planning, banish the last seven days from her mind entirely. Everything that happened is to be disregarded so that she can step back into things as if she hasn’t missed a beat. That means purging thoughts of her mother’s safe house, that means purging thoughts of Zuko, that means purging thoughts of Suki.

Of course, her mother’s safe house, Zuko, and Suki are particularly difficult things to dislodge from her brain.

Here is what she knows: Zuko is a problem. A very big problem she hadn’t anticipated, not in her wildest dreams. He’d vanished from her life 10 years prior, and it was her understanding that he would never be part of it again. It was a truth she had accepted and held fast to. He was gone, and she wouldn’t see him again, and that was enough.

Was it a shock when he left? On the one hand, no. He and Ozai fought too much for it to have been completely unexpected. On the other hand, yes. He was her big brother, he’d always been there, how could he just…leave? What could possibly be of more worth to him than his legacy and honor? What could possibly be of more worth to him than his family?

Azula doesn’t know what to do about him, which is very disturbing. He presents all manner of potential issues down the line. She doesn’t worry that he’ll be able to waltz into the Sozin estate and cause trouble or anything of that nature—one of Ozai’s first acts upon Zuko’s departure was to inform the Clan that Zuko would not be permitted in any Sozin-owned establishments in the entire city, and if that meant beating him to within an inch of his life to keep him out, then so be it. It’s not as if Zuko would really be that hard to pick out in a crowd. That scar is hardly subtle.

But Zuko apparently knows her movements—he abducted her in the middle of a parking lot outside a bar controlled by the Fire Clan, for fuck’s sake. He was strong enough to overpower her. Even more of note, he owns a _security_ agency, likely packed to the brim with people much like himself—in other words, self-righteous, resourceful, moderately intelligent, highly-trained, and physically capable.

Not to mention, well-informed. And that’s the main issue.

That said, Zuko is not only an enormous pain her ass, he’s also an enormous threat, which means he needs to be taken out of the equation somehow.

She braces her hands on the wall of the shower, tilting her head up to the icy water, focusing on the discomfort of the cold, trying to force it to sharpen her.

Part of her wants to simply forget him, hope that he’ll realize his efforts against her are futile and give up. If he stays in his place, and she in hers, then maybe that can be the end of things. Maybe that will be enough.

And back when she was nothing more than the heir to her father’s empire, maybe it _would_ have been enough. But she has to take up her father’s mantle now, she has to step things up, reach higher and farther than before, be just as strong and unflinching as Ozai.

And she knows what Ozai would do about Zuko.

He wouldn’t do it himself. She thinks—hopes—that maybe even he would hesitate at killing his own son with his own hands.

But he has more than a few men and women in his pocket who’d be willing to do the deed for him. She’d like to think he’d at least do Zuko the honor of having him killed by one of his more elite assassins—the Yu Yan Archers, perhaps. She hates the idea that he might leave it to some lowlife grunt—or worse, that he’d allow it to be part of an initiation.

Her stomach gives a sickening twist, and her fingers curl against the wall as she forces her breathing to remain slow and even.

She already lost Zuko once. Why couldn’t he have just stayed lost?

This is going to take more thought than she has the reserves for right now. She knows she’ll have to figure out what to do about him eventually—and far sooner than later, or else she risks everything she’s worked for, risks becoming a coward much in the same way as her mother, and look what happened to her mother—but for now…for now, she needs to not think about Zuko, or whatever feelings his presence is trying to dredge up out of her.

And speaking of feelings…or not feelings…there’s Suki.

Azula really thought she’d had her there for a second. But no, that fucking mark. Azula hates to admit that she’s inadvertently created her own failure. She marked Suki because she _liked_ her, but because she marked her, Suki _hates_ her.

No, that’s not right.

Suki doesn’t hate her. Suki forgot to hate her the second she let Azula kiss her.

But then she seemed to remember to hate her as soon as Azula ran her hand over that mark.

Another fucking conundrum to deal with.

No, Azula doesn’t have to deal with it at all, it’s done.

Suki was a brief blip in an otherwise flawlessly-executed escape. It had taken her days to loosen the bathroom window enough to get through, but knowing the cameras there had been blacked out—to preserve her dignity, to respect her privacy, all things she knew Suki wouldn’t betray—had given her the time and solitude she needed to work away at her escape without having to be concerned she might be caught. She’d observed, she’d calculated, she’d bided her time, and that was what mattered.

Her failure to get Suki in bed is of no consequence. It’s a blow to her pride, but it was a private affair no one else need know about. She doubts Suki will be in any hurry to tell her friends that she let the heir to the Fire Clan kiss her—that encounter and its lack of follow-through will remain unspoken between the two of them. Azula is going to have to learn to live with that.

She turns the water off and makes her way across the tile floor to the sink, pausing at Suki’s discarded clothes. She bends down and works her fingers into the pocket, pulling out the lipstick she took from Suki’s dresser. She straightens and looks herself over in the mirror for a moment before smoothly applying it to her own lips.

It isn’t what she wants, but at least _something_ of Suki’s belongs to her.

*

The next thing Azula encounters skyrockets straight to the top of her List of Annoying Things.

Namely: when she goes to her father’s hidden study beneath the estate grounds known as the Dragonbone Catacombs to refresh his plans for the Element X delivery, the room is already occupied. Not only is it occupied, it is occupied by Azula’s least favorite of her father’s men, the vain and power-hungry Zhao.

He looks up from the desk when Azula clears her throat, and flinches in shock to see her standing there.

“Azula!” he utters.

Azula offers a cold, upward twitch of her lips. “Zhao,” she returns. “Keeping that seat warm for me?”

He blinks, standing quickly as he catches her meaning, and makes his way to the side of the desk so that she can take his place.

She settles in comfortably, holding his gaze until he finally looks down. She mentally notes that it took him a beat too long to lower his gaze, and there seemed to be just the smallest spark of defiance in his eyes as he did so.

“We had no idea what happened to you,” Zhao tells her, looking back at her again with a more appropriate expression. “After your father’s arrest, when you disappeared…we were afraid you might have been taken as well.”

“Yes, you look absolutely beside yourself with worry,” Azula says, watching the muscle clench in his jaw. “Went searching for me yourself, did you?”

“I did,” Zhao growled. “I had every member of the Clan searching every corner of this city for you.”

Azula stares deep into his eyes, looking for even the smallest hint of dishonesty, but in this case at least, he seems sincere.

“Dare I ask where you were?” Zhao hazards.

“Family business,” Azula tells him. “Nothing you need concern yourself with.”

She glances over the papers sprawled across her father’s desk, maps and coded messages she is well-versed in. She’s going to assume the feds swept through the upstairs of the estate and took whatever evidence they could, but the Dragonbone Catacombs seem to have been left untouched, along with all the secrets hidden inside.

“I see the shipment’s still on schedule,” she remarks. “Re-routed in my absence, I assume.”

“I reached out to our supplier,” Zhao admits. “I thought it seemed appropriate to have it moved after your father’s arrest—“

“You thought correctly,” Azula assures him. “Where’s the new drop-off?”

“The Boiling Rock.”

Azula looks up at him, one eyebrow arched high. “You want a hand-off of Element X to take place inside a nightclub?” she asks critically.

“It’s still by the water, just a couple piers down from the power plant,” Zhao says. “It’s within the same trade route, so there shouldn’t be any delays. The Boiling Rock is firmly in Fire Clan territory, and our supplier’s son is one of the bartenders.”

“Is he one of ours?”

“Not officially, but if he works at an establishment controlled by our people, he’s as good as.”

“What a profoundly stupid thing to say,” Azula says, and Zhao flinches. “If he’s not ours, he can’t be trusted.”

“Our supplier is loyal to the Fire Clan,” Zhao says. “He sells to us exclusively.”

“Correction, he _has_ sold to us exclusively,” Azula says coldly. “There’s no guarantee he will continue to do so if we rely on an undeclared bartender to be the only one holding the door for us.”

“The Boiling Rock is owned by a longtime friend of your father, and one of his most trusted Clansmen,” Zhao tells her, as if she doesn’t know this already. “He wouldn’t hire someone if he didn’t think they could be controlled.”

Azula drums her fingers on the desk in thought. On the one hand, a public hand-off in a highly-populated, enclosed space is not ideal; but on the other, she doesn’t dare try to reschedule or re-route the shipment again—no one likes a finicky client, and if their supplier thinks the Fire Clan is simply jerking him around, he could easily back out of the deal, or worse, begin selling to other Families and informing them of the Fire Clan’s preferred trade routes.

“I hope you know what you’re doing, Zhao,” she tells him. “If it turns out we’ve walked into the lion’s den, I won’t hesitate to throw you in front of me.”

“If we walk into the lion’s den, I consider it my obligation to step in front of you myself, no need to throw me,” Zhao says with a small smile Azula thinks is meant to be an attempt at camaraderie she doesn’t appreciate.

“That said,” Zhao adds, “are you sure it’s wise to oversee the delivery yourself? This sort of thing is beneath you—especially now that you’re holding your father’s place.”

“I’m not holding my father’s place, I’m taking it,” Azula corrects. “And I know for a fact he planned to oversee this very _special_ delivery himself, so why shouldn’t I?”

“Can I speak candidly?”

“If you must.”

“You’re untested,” Zhao tells her.

Azula feels anger flare up inside her, and quickly wrestles control over it.

“I don’t doubt your ability to fill your father’s shoes, but you’re inexperienced,” Zhao says. “The hand-off itself should be smooth, but once we leave the Boiling Rock…once our people have it en route to our storage facilities, it could very well be an ambush waiting to happen. And if you’re there…”

“If I’m there, then there’s no denying I’m more than capable of taking my father’s place,” Azula interrupts.

“The fact remains that you’re inexperienced,” Zhao says again, more quietly this time. “If I’m not mistaken, you still have yet to shed another’s blood.”

“I’ve shed plenty.”

“You have yet to take a _life,”_ Zhao clarifies.

Azula’s expression hardens. “Now that type of work _is_ beneath me,” she growls. “My father rarely dirtied his hands when there were others who could do it for him. If necessary, I’ll be willing to put someone in front of a gun, but I hardly see the point of pulling the trigger myself. That’s what I have people like you for.”

“It was rare that Ozai dirtied his hands, but it wasn’t unheard of,” Zhao says carefully. “Especially when he was first starting to build his empire. It reinforced his sense of power.”

“My hands stay clean for now,” Azula snaps. “I have no need to make violent displays of power when I can just as easily ensure my place as kingpin through trade.” She looks over the papers strewn in front of her. “My father’s entire business plan at present revolves around the Element X market. I’ll keep a low profile when it comes to his other business ventures, but he’s been striving for monopoly over Element X since its earliest stages of development. I’m not going to let that go to waste. I will be overseeing every step of this process.”

“You risk a lot.”

“I’d be risking a lot _less_ if you’d secured a better hand-off site,” Azula says coolly. “You’re short-sighted, and have treated this delivery as a one-stop exchange, rather than one crucial part of a working whole. My father was a visionary and you’ve sorely misinterpreted his ends. I’m just glad I returned when I did. Another week of your poor excuse for leadership and my father’s entire legacy would have gone up in smoke.”

Zhao looks like he’s grinding rocks between his teeth.

“But what’s done is done,” Azula says with a shrug. “You and the Yu Yan Archers will accompany me to the Boiling Rock this evening. We’ll enact your small-scale plan, and then we’ll return here so that I may enlighten you all with regards to my father’s more longterm aspirations. Consider this a practice run—things are going to get quite a bit more involved after this.”

She waves him away, but as he begins to turn, she adds, “And Zhao. Don’t let me catch you down here again without my permission. I’d hate for you to be the first man I put in front of a gun.”

*

Azula has never been a fan of the Boiling Rock. In a city teeming with seedy clubs, the Boiling Rock may be the seediest.

In some ways, she supposes that will work in her favor. Whenever Ozai held meetings at other establishments, they were typically more upscale. He was known for his refined tastes, which means a cheap, seedy bar by the docks isn’t a place most would expect a high-profile Fire Clan deal to take place. Anyone who sees Azula go in will likely see her as just another girl going to just another club looking for a cheap drink and a cheap fuck.

That said, perhaps Zhao isn’t a _complete_ idiot.

Bracing herself, she makes her way through the thick throng of sweaty bodies on the dance floor, gaze sweeping the entire darkened room before landing on the bartender. She frowns as she draws level with him. He’s too young—younger than her, not responsible enough to handle an exchange by himself.

He looks at her uncertainly, clearly knowing to expect someone of importance from the Fire Clan, but unsure how to identify them.

“What can I get you?” he asks over the dull pounding bass of the music being pumped in from speakers both above and below.

“Nothing from the bar,” Azula tells him. She places her hands on the counter, and the boy’s gaze falls to the ring on her middle finger—the ring which, incidentally, Azula used to mark Suki as her own. To keep her safe.

The bartender’s eyes grow wide, and he nods in understanding. “What you want is almost back in stock,” he says. He gestures across the room. “Your friends are waiting in the booth up there. I’ll let you know as soon as we’ve replenished what you’re looking for.”

Azula holds his gaze coldly, noting the bob of his Adam’s apple as he swallows nervously.

“The second it’s here,” she says.

“The second it’s here,” he affirms.

She turns and makes her way toward the booth the bartender had indicated. Zhao waits there for her with a handful of the Yu Yan Archers, and the Boiling Rock’s owner, known simply as the Warden.

Azula is reassured by the Warden’s presence at least. He takes pride in the Boiling Rock and has always been a loyal friend of her father’s, not to mention, he’s an old initiate of the Fire Clan. To know that he’ll be watching the hand-off like a hawk in effort to protect his business and his Family relieves some of Azula’s more immediate concerns.

She settles in beside Zhao, taking note of a few other people she recognizes, in other booths, on the dance floor, and standing at the ready along the walls. The club is packed with Fire Clan members, which is both a relief, and a bit aggravating. While it does ease her nerves that so many of her people are here, she’s uncertain whether they’re here simply by happenstance as customers, or if they’re aware of the hand-off, and have been gathered by Zhao in preemptive defense.

In that case, she’ll have to have further words with him. Even if it’s for her own good, she doesn’t like the idea of him making any executive decisions without her sign-off, particularly when it comes to amassing her people in one place.

“When does it arrive?” she asks the Warden, accepting the drink he offers her. Aged whiskey. Like her father. She glows just the slightest bit. This is how they would have greeted him.

“Midnight,” the Warden answers. “It’s on the freight that supplies the rest of what we serve here. It’ll be fresh off the boat, as it were. Direct to us. The bartender’ll get it to the cellar, keep all our faces clear of whoever’s making deliveries.”

“And who’s going to tend the bar while the boy is getting our merchandise?” Azula asks flatly.

The Warden smirks. “I’ll step in for a bit,” he says. “The patrons love that. Now relax, everything’s in place. Have a drink, dance, soak this place up. This is your territory now. Use it however you want.”

“Yes. To your reign,” Zhao adds, holding up his glass.

“To your reign,” the Warden echoes.

Azula looks at them closely, wanting to stay on her guard, but unable to completely stifle a smile. “To the Fire Clan,” she says, and the three of them clink glasses.

Azula looks around with careful satisfaction as she takes a drink, letting it warm her. The Warden’s right. This _is_ her territory now. She doesn’t need permission for anything, or from anyone. Everything within her line of vision belongs to her. Every _person_ within her line of vision belongs…

She freezes as her gaze lands on the Boiling Rock’s newest customer coming through the roped-off door.

“Excuse me, gentlemen,” she murmurs, setting her drink aside and getting to her feet.

She skirts the edge of the dance floor, eyes glued to her prey, who is dressed so tantalizingly in skintight black leather pants and a slinky green top with an open back, showing off the muscles in her shoulders.

Azula eases up behind her, fingers landing on her hip. “Looking for me?” she asks.

Suki jumps on contact, turning to her, but while surprised at Azula’s sudden proximity, she doesn’t seem surprised to find Azula in general.

“I am,” she says, chin lifted. “Zuko sent me to protect you.”

Azula smiles, taking her wrist and tugging her lightly toward the dance floor. She feels Suki give a small show of resistance before allowing herself to be pulled along. Once Azula finds a comfortable area to be part of the ebb and flow of dancing bodies, but separate enough for some privacy, she pulls Suki flush against her, one arm wrapping around her waist, the fingers of her other hand twining with Suki’s.

“What are you doing?” Suki asks, eyes wide.

“I’m in the mood to dance, and if you’re here to protect me, I need you at my side,” Azula says.

Suki places a warning hand on Azula’s arm around her waist, but doesn’t attempt to remove it or break out of her hold. Which is all the permission Azula needs to begin dancing with her, slowly and in complete control.

“What are you protecting me from, exactly?” Azula asks as an afterthought. Suki feels good against her like this—she’s slim, but made of solid muscle, and graced with curves Azula is aching to get her hands on. She wasn’t expecting to see her again so soon—or ever, really—and this surprise visit fills her with a sort of possessive delight. Her Suki, who she marked, now in her territory. All hers.

Suki swallows thickly, like she can sense Azula’s feelings of possessiveness, color high in her cheeks. “We know about the Element X delivery,” she says. “Others do, too. It’s not safe for you here.”

“I’m the safest I’ve ever been,” Azula counters lightly. “This whole establishment is my Family.”

“You don’t know that,” Suki says, shaking her head. “Azula, if Zuko could figure out the drop-off site, so can anyone, _especially_ if they have the right connections here. The Boiling Rock might be Fire Clan territory, but it wouldn’t be that difficult for some unknown grunts from other Families to get in unnoticed. You’re in danger here.”

“Then it’s a good thing I have you with me,” Azula says with a smile. She glances around. “You and the rest of Avatar Security. Where is my brother, anyway?”

“Well he’s not _here,_ here,” Suki says. “He wasn’t positive…he pinpointed six possible locations he thought might be the new drop-off site. He’s at one of the others a couple piers down. A few of our other agents are staked out at the rest.”

“And you’re the lucky little agent who walked right into the hornets’ nest,” Azula says, hand gliding up the smooth plane of Suki’s naked back. Her skin is hot and flushed, and Azula feels arousal coiling deliciously in her core. She curls her fingers, raking blunted nails gently down Suki’s back to rest again at her hip. Suki shivers, and it’s everything Azula can do to keep from pouncing.

“You look beautiful, by the way,” she says instead, remembering that appealing to Suki requires a softer touch. At least for now. “I’m glad you came for me. I was sorry to leave without saying goodbye.”

“Zuko gave me a job protecting you,” Suki says. “That’s what I intend to do.”

“Ah. And dressed like this, no less. Tell me—the tactical advantage of the skintight leather pants and the backless top are…?”

“Flushing you out,” Suki says. “I didn’t even have to try to find you, you came straight to me.”

Like a fucking moth to a flame.

Azula pauses, a spark of annoyance lashing against the inside of her skull before she can stop it. Suki isn’t wrong. Azula _did_ see her and went directly to her side without thinking. The triumphant glint barely hidden in Suki's expression is awfully endearing, though.

“Clever girl,” Azula says smoothly, fingers curling against Suki’s back again as she resumes dancing with her, not enough to hurt but certainly enough to remind her who’s in control here. “And now that you have me, what next? Going to try to abduct me like my brother did? You’re surrounded by my people, it might not be the wisest move for you.”

“None of them can hurt me, thanks to you,” Suki points out. “But no, I’m not here to do anything except protect you.”

“And then what?”

“You walk away from this. You come with me, we meet with Zuko, and we talk. Figure out what to do. So far, you haven’t done anything we can’t get you out of. You were a juvenile when you burned the school, never caught for it, and anything you’ve done as an adult has never been linked to you officially—Zuko only knows about them because he’s kept tabs on you ever since leaving the family.”

Well that’s an unpleasant revelation.

“Zuko can destroy the file he has on you, he can destroy any hints of evidence that could tie you to any other minor crimes,” Suki continues. “You can stay with him—not as a prisoner, just as his sister. Let us protect you until the worst of the power struggle is over. If you’ll just work with us, we can help you walk away from this. You can get out clean, like Zuko.”

“I know for a fact you’re trying to build a case against me,” Azula says. “It’s a little hard to trust you given that little nugget of information.”

“That was a contingency plan, when you weren’t cooperating with us,” Suki insists. “It doesn’t have to be that way, not if you let us help you.”

“I’m on the precipice of getting my hands on something very special,” Azula tells her. “More special than you or my brother or even my father’s most trusted advisors are aware of. What on earth would make you think I’d want to walk away from this?”

“Self-preservation.”

“I’m not terribly concerned about my well-being at the moment. What else do you have to offer?”

“A reunion with your brother—one where neither of you try to kill or drug each other.”

Azula shakes her head, smiling. “What else?”

Suki seems to cast her mind around for an answer, and Azula lets the hand at her waist wander, just a little, before coming up to tuck a lock of hair behind Suki’s ear.

“Would you ever say ‘for me’?” Azula asks, and Suki stiffens. “Would you ever offer yourself? Ask me to walk away in exchange for a night with you?”

Suki stills in her arms, locking eyes with her fiercely, seeming speechless.

“That’s alright,” Azula says with a smile. “I’d be disappointed if you did.”

Suki pushes herself out of Azula’s hold, taking a step back, danger flashing behind her eyes.

“This deal is going to go sour, Azula,” she says firmly. “I’m asking you to walk away before it does. Things are too unpredictable right now. Please let me help you.”

“Suki, I hate saying no to you, I really do, but I’m afraid I must.” Azula glances over at the clock over the bar which reads 11:56.

“You’ve put me in a very awkward position,” she continues. “I can’t have you running off to my brother, I can’t have you interfering with my work, and I really hate the idea of anything bad happening to you.” She looks to the nearest bouncer, considering her options. "Chit Sang!” she calls.

The giant man guarding the steps up to the booth area turns at her summons, making his way over to them, eyebrows raised curiously.

“I have some business to attend to, and I need someone to keep my friend company,” Azula tells him. “Don’t let her out of your sight, hm? I’d hate for her to get lonely.”

Her hands return to Suki’s waist and she presses her mouth against her ear. “I’ll be back when I have what I’m here for,” she tells her, feeling comfortable tendrils of warmth spread through her as Suki shudders against her. “Then you and I are going to do a little role reversal, and you’ll be coming home with me while I figure out what to do with you.”

As she pulls away, Suki grabs her arm, looking at her urgently. “Azula, please walk away from this,” she says with overwhelming earnestness.

Azula leans back in, pressing her lips to Suki’s cheek. “You’re so sweet,” she murmurs, then turns on her heel, making her way back to her booth.

“Problems?” Zhao asks as she slides in beside him.

“Personal matters,” Azula says, taking a sip of her drink. “No cause for alarm. Now where the hell is that idiot bartender?”

“He’s gone out back to help load the cargo into the cellar and make the exchange,” Zhao tells her. “The Warden’s taken his place at the bar. He’ll signal us as soon as the doors are closed. We’ll go down, make sure everything’s accounted for. If we’re missing anything, it’s still another 15 minutes before the freight finishes its other deliveries. We can get our men on it.”

“Are you anticipating us missing anything?”

“No. Like I said. The boy’s as good as ours.”

Despite his words, Azula can feel the tension in his demeanor as they wait for the minutes to tick by.

She finds herself letting out a slow breath of relief as the door behind the bar opens, and the Warden nods, signaling up to them.

“Finally,” Azula mutters, getting to her feet and making her way down to the bar with Zhao and two of the Yu Yan Archers in tow, their sidearms glinting ever so briefly in the flash of an overhead light. She glances quickly across the dance floor to where Suki is seated beside Chit Sang, watching her every step. She hopes Chit Sang is brighter than he looks—Suki might be a third his size, but she’s hardly helpless.

Concerns for later.

She follows the Warden through the door behind the bar down the steps to the cellar. The bartender stands at a table in the center of the room, surrounded by cases of their typical cargo, one small duffel bag pulled aside. The boy is sweating and pasty, a toothpick clamped nervously between his lips.

Azula goes to the duffel bag, sifting meticulously through its limited contents.

“That’s it?” Zhao asks over her shoulder. He sounds furious. “Where’s the rest of it?”

Azula looks up in time to see him seize the boy by the front of his shirt. The two Yu Yan Archers draw their sidearms.

“Zhao, put the boy down,” Azula instructs calmly. She zips the bag back up and tosses it to him. Zhao catches it on instinct, looking baffled. “This is everything we ordered.”

Zhao holds the bag up. “This is _it?”_ he demands. “From everything you said, I assumed this would be a larger haul…”

“It’s everything we need,” Azula tells him. She goes to the boy, who shrinks at her approach. She takes out a wad of cash, pressing it into his sweating palm. “For your service,” she says. She looks him over thoughtfully. He’s stupid and skittish, but he _is_ a good connection to have, particularly in the longterm. An unassuming delivery boy with direct lineage to their supplier. He could prove problematic if she’s to enact her father’s more intricate goals, but for now…this could work.

“We’ll be by later in the week,” she tells him. “Take some time to mull over your alliances. There might be room for you in the Fire Clan if you keep up the good work.” She pats his cheek and he flinches.

She motions for the Yu Yan Archers to lead the way upstairs, snapping to get Zhao’s attention. “I want that taken directly to the Catacombs,” she instructs. He opens his mouth to protest, but she speaks over him. “None of the storage facilities. I want it in my sight at all times. It’s more precious than you know.”

“So I suppose you’re giving me permission to go inside then?” Zhao growls.

“Consider it an honor, and don’t overstep,” Azula says with a smile. She gestures. “After you.”

With a grumble, he heads up the stairs, the Warden behind him, and Azula taking up the rear.

The second she steps through the door, chaos ensues.

It begins with a single shot—the air is split with it, and Azula’s gaze flies up to see the Yu Yan Archer who had led their way back up jerk back as the bullet hits him square in the forehead, and he drops lifeless to the floor.

Panic explodes around her as a second shot rings out, silencing the music, and then a third, and the patrons of the Boiling Rock begin to swarm, some ducking down, others pulling people along to cover, most of them screaming and shouting.

Azula dives behind a table as a fourth shot splits the air, and finds herself looking out across the dance floor, trying to get eyes on Suki. Where the fuck—

There she is—she’s leapt clear of the entryway and is ducked behind an upended table, a broken beer bottle in her hand. Good girl. Azula lets out a harsh breath of relief, forcing her attention back to where it _should_ be—namely, on Zhao and the duffel bag he has clutched in his hand. He’s ducked behind a table on the opposite side of the bar, going for his sidearm.

Azula jumps as further shots break out from across the room. She thinks they’re from across the room, at least—it’s impossible to tell in all the chaos.

She scrambles to get to Zhao, noting that none of the club’s more casual patrons seem to have been hurt. Whoever’s behind the gun—or guns, plural—is letting them flee the club in panic, upending chairs and tables in their wake.

One mystery solved—this isn’t a random act of violence, there’s a target, and Azula is going to make a safe bet that that target is herself.

Fuck, Suki was right.

“Who the hell is shooting at us?” she shouts over the din as she reaches Zhao.

“Fuck if I know—they’re at least four strong, maybe more!” he shouts back.

They both flinch as more shots ring out and the screaming around them intensifies. At least she can be sure some of those shots are her own people—she sees others of her Yu Yan boys jumping into the fray. Azula pokes her head out again, gaze flicking through the masses in search of Suki. Suki’s smart, she tells herself. She wouldn’t stick around for no reason, she’d get out of here. She’s a smart girl…

She’s also stubborn, Azula thinks with some sickening twist of concern. What if she chose to stay, chose to stick out her job, to protect her…?

“Give me this,” she orders, snatching the duffel bag out of Zhao’s grasp. “Get to the estate, no detours. I’ll meet you there.”

Zhao nods, and makes his way into the fray, dodging and ducking to get to one of the side exits.

Azula clutches the bag tight, nerving herself up. All she needs to do is make a quick round of the room, make sure Suki hasn’t gotten herself killed, and she can be on her merry way as well…

She rolls clear of the table as a barrage of bullets flies through it, exploding into splinters.

Apparently someone with some serious ammo has arrived on the scene.

She dives and rolls through the pandemonium, searching urgently for Suki.

She’s gone, she tells herself firmly. She’s gotten out, escaped, she’s fine.

She springs up toward the far exit, not seeing the gunman until his firearm is drawn level with her head. She’s only just putting the pieces together when it fires.

Whatever pain she expected never comes—instead, she’s tackled painfully to the floor, the strap of the duffel bag catching on the leg of an upturned chair and tearing away from her grasp.

She stares up at her savior, finding Suki straddling her hips, glaring down at her, disheveled and panting, eyes blazing.

“What the hell are you still doing here?” Azula demands.

“Saving your sorry ass, now get up,” Suki snaps, not waiting for her to obey as she pulls her to her feet.

“You know, you’re gonna make me fall in love with you,” Azula can’t help but snark, grunting when Suki yanks her out of the way of another table exploding.

Fire erupts around them, and Azula looks around to see that the entire club is being swept up in a current of flame. It’s only then that she remembers the duffel bag she dropped.

Yanking her arm free of Suki, she straightens, pulling her shirt over her nose and mouth against the smoke, searching frantically for where she dropped it. There—

She makes her way toward it, not hearing the click of the gun until it’s too late.

She feels Suki’s hand around her wrist, trying to pull her away, then feels it slip from her as Suki is propelled backward by some unseen force.

Azula wheels in horror only to see Suki drop against the edge of a table, the impact knocking her senseless. Blood trickles freely from a bullet wound embedded deep in her shoulder. Azula rushes to her side, glancing up to see one of the Yu Yan Archers lift an unerring arm, hears the deafening _crack_ and _fwip_ as he shoots Suki’s attacker dead.

“Suki,” Azula breathes, struggling to gather the other woman up in her arms.

She’s out cold. Flames are closing in. And that fucking duffel back is just out of her reach. If Azula makes a dive for it and sprints, she can make it out with her prize unharmed.

But she can’t do that while trying to drag an unconscious woman with her.

She looks back and forth between the two of them, heart racing and blood rushing in her ears, thinking so hard and so fast she can’t actually grasp a single thought that goes by.

She can get away with one. She can’t get away with both.

Flames rush hungrily toward her, and hungrily away toward the bag.

She can get away with one. Can’t get away with both.

The bag or Suki.

One or none.

 _…_ Fuck _._

Knowing she’s going to regret this, but unable to do otherwise, Azula gathers Suki up in her arms and carries her clumsily through the destroyed club, bursting free of it into the clear, cool air outside, leaving the duffel bag and its contents to be consumed by flames within.

She collapses against the wall of the neighboring business, cradling Suki against her as she pulls in grateful gulps of air. Far off in the distance she hears sirens beginning to wail. Suki gives a pained moan against her neck.

“You’re going to be bad for business,” Azula grumbles, then straightens, hoisting Suki up in her arms and making her way toward her car, which she wisely parked several blocks down from the Boiling Rock. Which is currently not so much a _boiling_ rock as it is a rock engulfed almost completely in flame.

So. By the end of this very annoying week, Azula has succeeded in neither the seduction of her bodyguard, nor the overseeing of the Element X delivery.

…Not a great start to her debut as Firelord.


	9. Chapter 9

Zuko isn’t stupid. He knew tonight’s attempt at getting Azula to abandon the Element X shipment would be a mess—it was a half-assed plan scrambled together in only a couple hours’ time. Not one of his best, he knew that going in.

He was not, however, expecting for an entire establishment to be burned to the ground because of it.

It’s fairly obvious which of his suspected potential drop-off locations is the one as soon as hears sirens screaming in the distance and looks outside to see black smoke rising into the sky a couple piers down. It may as well spell out the words, “Hello, Azula here!” in flashing red lights.

Abandoning his own half-baked lead, he tears down the street, putting in a call to Suki as he goes. She doesn’t pick up, but he forces himself not to panic. There are all manner of reasons why Suki might not be answering her phone right at this very moment—could be because she’s helping get people out, maybe helping get the fire under control (he remembers she was a volunteer firefighter when she was younger, it was one of the things that stuck out most to him on her resume when he was first considering hiring her).

Or she could be trying to wrestle Azula into compliance, either with words, or with force.

Or she could be hurt.

Or worse.

He picks up his pace, and calls Sokka.

*

Returning home empty-handed makes him feel sick. It’s with Sokka’s blessing—

_“Someone needs to man the operation from home,” Sokka told him_

—but it still feels wrong to leave when the rest of his team are scouring the city for Suki.

Sokka’s right, he tells himself. He needs to be the cool-headed leader right now. He needs a quiet place to organize and put in a call to everyone who will be of use to him, including members of their team, and their not-quite-legal outside sources. He needs solitude to map out their next steps. He needs to push his thoughts from the problem, to the solution. That’s his job as their leader.

He plunks himself down on his couch, scrolling through his contacts. First call is to Aang—he wants eyes on the Sozin estate as quickly as possible. Despite her fearlessness and taste for danger, Azula has always needed a home base, something to return to when things feel out of control. He knows, because he’s seen it, that Azula does feel fear, and when she feels fear, she either goes on an explosive rampage, or retreats to her home where things are familiar, where she can put her thoughts back in order.

Sort of like what he’s doing now, he guesses.

So: Aang and a handful of others will get eyes on the Sozin estate in case Azula flees for home.

Then it’s a call to June. She tends to avoid situations that are too hot, not wanting to find herself in the line of fire, or allying with one side or another of a political or gang-related war, so Zuko knows he can’t put her on Azula’s trail, she’ll flat-out refuse. But she will take on Suki’s case. All she needs is a scent for Nyla. She agrees to come meet him in the morning—he knows for a fact the delay isn’t because she’s trying to sleep, he can hear the jeers and cheers of a crowd behind her, likely at a bar, or, for all he knows, some kind of fight club situation…but she’ll come on her own terms, and he’s used to that. It’s best to play by her rules, and not insist on the urgency of an issue. If she thinks someone is telling her how to do her job, she’ll turn on them in a second.

Next, he needs to decide how willing he is to make use of one of their snitches with the RCPD. They’re expensive, they come with a multitude of strings attached, and their loyalties can change quicker than June’s. Zuko would like to keep things within the Avatar Security family as much as possible without shaking up too many outside forces.

His mind slips to Sokka. He’d almost insisted on having Sokka come home with him, considered appealing to his need to be part of the planning process of their work. But Sokka was too worked up. He was frantic when he joined Zuko at the burning Boiling Rock, nearly beside himself as he searched pointlessly for Suki, ready to crack skulls.

No, the best place for Sokka right now is to be in the thick of things, so he can feel useful, he can feel like he’s on the verge of finding Suki, of rescuing her. Retreating to plot out a better course would only make him aggravated, it would bring out an explosive temper Zuko has seen only very rarely, and always in the case of protecting the people he loves. Running all over the city trying to track Suki down is fruitless, but it’s what Sokka needs most.

Alright, re-focus. There are about a thousand more pieces Zuko needs to get in place if he’s going to find Suki _or_ Azula.

He’s just about to make another call when someone pounds on his door so hard it shudders and Zuko’s heart jumps against his chest.

Body rigid and alert, he gets to his feet, stalking silently to the door. He peers through the peephole, and doubts his own sanity as he lays eyes on the person standing outside.

“The hell?” he murmurs to himself as undoes the locks and yanks the door open, certain he’s going to open it and find no one there, discover that he’s suffering some sort of delusion.

But as the door opens, it reveals exactly what he saw through the peephole: Azula, frazzled, sweaty, and covered in patches of soot and ash, half-carrying an unconscious Suki in her arms.

“What do I do with this?” Azula demands, voice strained.

Zuko is too struck by the sight in front of him to answer immediately. “Azula?” he finds himself asking in surprise before he can stop himself.

“She won’t wake up, and she won’t stop bleeding, what do I do?” Azula asks again, anger whipping behind her eyes. “You’re supposed to help people, so help her!”

Zuko takes one more split second to try to comprehend what he’s seeing, then gives up and ushers her quickly inside.

“Put her on the couch,” he says, closing the door behind them.

He watches, still in disbelief, as Azula stumbles toward the couch and manages to ease Suki down into the cushions with a sort of gentleness he wouldn’t expect his sister to be all that capable of.

She straightens up, pointing at Suki and glaring at Zuko. “Okay, now fix her,” she commands.

Zuko blinks at her. “I can’t just—I don’t know how to—what happened to her?” he finally settles on.

“She got shot by whatever idiots attacked the Boiling Rock,” Azula snaps. “She fell back, hit her head…probably inhaled way too much smoke…and I don’t know what to do with her!”

“She was _shot?”_ Zuko demands, his eyes falling to Suki where he’s just now noticing the sloppily-tied strips of what Zuko thinks were once parts of a jacket wrapped in a sling around Suki’s shoulder. An alarming stain of blood can be seen blotting through the material.

“Why the hell didn’t you take her to the hospital?” Zuko snaps.

“Our Family doesn’t use hospitals,” Azula snaps right back. “No one can be trusted there. You should know that.”

“Home, then!” Zuko shouts. “Why didn’t you take her home and ring up the Family physician?”

“Because the estate’s on fucking fire, Zuko!”

He jerks his head back in surprise. “The estate’s—what do you mean the estate’s on _fire?”_

“I mean the estate’s on fire, jackass. Our home—my home—is on fire. I went straight there after we got out of the Boiling Rock, and it was burning. I don’t know if the people who did it are the same who went after us at the Boiling Rock, or if this was someone else…I don’t know if it’s Clan-related, or if it’s the Red Lotus, fuck it, maybe _your_ people did it…I don’t know, I just don’t know…but it’s…”

There’s fear in her eyes. Fear, and—

Almost the second he registers it, Azula seems to see his recognition and quickly shuts down, expression cooling defensively.

“I tried Ty Lee but she won’t pick up her phone,” she says, more in control now. “Mai’s out of the country. That pretty much exhausts the people I’d trust…and Zhao…who knows where Zhao’s gotten to.”

“So you came to me.”

“Well Suki belongs to you, doesn’t she?” Azula explodes, gesturing helplessly at her. “So fix her!”

“I can’t _fix_ her, that’s not what I do—“

They both jump as the door opens and Sokka walks in. He’s rubbing his temple with his fingers, looking exhausted and frustrated and distracted.

“Fucking phone died,” he mutters as he makes for Zuko. “She’s nowhere, absolutely no—“

He breaks off abruptly as his eyes fall first to Suki, then lift up to Azula. The confounded expression on his face would almost be funny if not for the situation, and any humor that might have been is shattered as all the pieces seem to come together in Sokka’s brain and he lunges for Azula, one hand instinctively snatching up a decorative boomerang from a stand on the counter.

“What did you do to her?” he roars, and before either Zuko or Azula has the chance to register it, Sokka has Azula shoved up against the wall with one hand around her throat, the other holding the boomerang threateningly in the air.

Zuko watches as Azula’s expression hardens from shock into a cold mask quirked by a performative uptick of her lips.

“So,” she drawls. “Sokka’s your name, right? Late to the rescue by a few years, but I suppose late is better than never.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Sokka growls, but before Azula can answer, Zuko gets a hand on Sokka’s shoulder and pulls him off of her.

“Don’t listen to her, she’s just trying to get under your skin,” he tells Sokka. He glares at Azula, trying to will her to be silent. The absolute last thing they need right now is Azula letting slip old secrets and driving a wedge between them all.

“Yes, careful with that temper, Boomerang Boy,” Azula agrees, straightening forward from the wall, one hand coming up to massage her throat. Her gaze is dark, and while she possesses all the right affects of amusement, that humor doesn’t reach her eyes. “You might break my brother’s heart with all those heroic displays made for someone else. Not that I’d blame you if you were still in love with Suki—if she ever kissed you the way she did me, I can see why you might have a hard time getting over her…”

She grunts as Sokka shoves her against the wall again. Zuko grabs his shoulder, pushing him back and getting himself between the two of them, keeping both at arm’s length away from each other.

“Both of you, back off!” he snarls, glaring back and forth between the two of them. He lets go of Azula and jabs her roughly in the shoulder. “You, shut up. And you,” he says, jabbing Sokka’s chest, “Call your sister. Suki’s been shot and Katara’s the only one on call with any medical training.”

Sokka’s eyes go wide at the same time his face darkens with renewed rage. “Suki’s been _shot?”_ he begins.

“Call. Katara. Now,” Zuko orders firmly.

Sokka holds his glare, and it’s the first time he thinks he’s ever seen Sokka truly angry with him.

Not him, he tries to reassure himself. Sokka isn’t really angry with him, he’s angry with Azula. And scared for Suki. And frustrated that Zuko isn’t allowing him to take his anger out on Azula.

As if accepting this for himself, Sokka finally releases his breath and makes his way over to sit on the edge of the couch next to where Suki is laid out, one hand resting protectively on her shoulder, the other calling up Katara. He stares daggers in Azula’s direction from across the room.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Zuko hisses at Azula.

“What, afraid I’ll let slip that you knew about my run-in with Suki at the Ba Sing Se school all those years ago?” she murmurs back.

Zuko flushes angrily. “No, I mean all that bullshit you were saying about kissing Suki,” he growls. “What the hell was that all about?”

To his surprise, Azula hesitates, a muscle ticking in the corner of her jaw as she seems to weigh something in her mind. Her expression closes off as soon as she senses he’s trying to figure her out, and she gives him a cold smile.

“Oh you know me,” she says, holding his gaze placidly. “I say the darnedest things when I get backed into a corner.”

Zuko flinches inwardly, fending off memories he doesn’t have the energy to deal with now.

“Relax, Zuzu,” she tells him, patting his cheek. “You know I love pushing people’s buttons, and your boyfriend makes it easy. Don’t take it so personally.”

“Katara says give her 10 minutes,” Sokka reports, and they turn their attention to him. He’s pushing down hard on Suki’s shoulder and glaring at Azula. “We’re supposed to have been keeping constant pressure on the wound.”

“I _was_ keeping constant pressure,” Azula snaps. “But she needed to be moved somewhere safe. And then _someone_ shoved me up against a wall. Hard to keep pressure on her from all the way across the room.”

Sokka grumbles, returning his attention to Suki.

Zuko looks back at Azula, frowning thoughtfully. He’d have expected her to at least _try_ to leave by this time, but her attention—although from afar—seems just as focused on Suki as Sokka’s.

“Why did you bring her here?” Zuko asks quietly, not wanting to Sokka to hear them.

Azula looks both surprised and offended by the question. “You know I marked her,” she says. “If you’ve been keeping such close tabs on me over the years, you’re aware of that at least. I’m sure it’s the real reason why you assigned her to me, because you knew she’d be safe from me and anyone else who belongs to the Fire Clan.” She crosses her arms and leans back against the wall, gaze flicking back over to Suki. “Clan law dictates we can’t hurt her. I’m fulfilling an obligation.”

“Last I remember, Clan law doesn’t dictate that you be responsible for saving her life,” Zuko says. “Just that you don’t hurt her. Unless you’re the one who shot her…”

“Of course I’m not the one who shot her,” Azula mutters. She gives a sharp shrug. “She was attacked in Fire Clan territory, in a Fire Clan establishment. I’m just here to ensure she hasn’t been damaged beyond repair on our soil, or else I’m going to have to hold the Boiling Rock’s proprietor partially responsible. I’ll be leaving as soon as your healer arrives, and I’d strongly discourage you from trying to stop me.”

But Azula doesn’t leave as soon as Katara arrives. Instead, she watches closely as Katara settles in and begins her work, flinching when Katara berates her from across the room and orders her over to help clean the wound.

Zuko can hardly believe it when Azula actually obeys—it’s the first time he’s seen her obey a directive given by anyone other than Ozai without protest. Her expression remains trained in its unfeeling mask, but Zuko sees her run her fingers through Suki’s hair when Suki twitches against the metal instrument Katara has digging into the wound to retrieve the bullet.

Zuko’s fascination is broken when Katara orders him over as well.

“You and Sokka need to hold her down,” she says shortly. “I need her to keep still while I do this, or it’s gonna do more harm then good. Azula, move.”

Again, Azula obeys, and Zuko and Sokka hold Suki down and as still as possible as Katara continues to try to retrieve the bullet. Suki seems to be floating in and out of consciousness, and her body tenses and struggles every time she grasps at a hint of awareness before pitching back into unconsciousness again. She’s strong, too—Zuko has to focus hard on keeping her still while Katara works, sweat breaking across his forehead from the effort.

He keeps expecting to hear Azula slipping away, escaping into the night, but the sound never comes. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see shadows of movement. Azula is pacing back and forth like a caged animal, far removed from the rest of them, but attention locked unerringly on Suki. She’s no more than a dark presence behind them, but Zuko can feel a sort of foreign concern radiating off her. He wasn’t aware she could feel things like concern for others, and wonders if maybe she’s been able to all along, but has simply been better at concealing it. Or if Suki just brings this out in her.

At last, Katara succeeds in pulling the bullet out, dropping it onto the coffee table. Blood begins to ooze more freely from Suki’s wound now, and Katara orders them all to fetch various items for her, perform different tasks Zuko isn’t entirely sure he understands, while her hands move like lightning, pressing and prodding to assess for any further internal damage, cleaning and pressing and stitching and dressing the wound like it’s what she was built for.

And in a way, it is. Katara was on a fast track to becoming one of the most promising up-and-coming young surgeons in the city a few years back, having skipped several grades in school and quickly rising to the top ranks in undergrad, earning her the pick of the litter when it came to her choice of medical school by the time she was 21.

The fact that she abandoned all that—or re-focused it, anyway—and joined Avatar Security because she wanted to be part of something that helped people who often couldn’t afford what they needed to survive, is a controversial topic in her family, Zuko knows.

Fuck, is he ever grateful right now, though. Suki is closed up and resting peacefully.

“I want her taken back to headquarters tomorrow,” Katara tells them firmly. “Internal damage seems limited which is a miracle honestly, but I want to get an x-ray, make sure everything’s how it should be.”

“Can I see the bullet?” Azula asks.

They all turn to her in surprise. Sokka’s temper spikes in a way that can almost be felt, but Zuko knows why Azula’s asking. He picks it up and tosses it to her.

“What the hell are you doing?” Sokka demands.

“Clansmen and their assassins are vain,” Azula says disinterestedly, bringing the bullet over to the sink. “The higher class ones get their weapons custom-made, often including a carved symbol, or even a color. They’re warnings to other Clans when found. It’s a language the RCPD doesn’t speak. But if you find a Fire Clan member riddled with bullets signed with Water Clan symbols, it’s a fairly glaring statement that someone stepped out of line. And I want to know who shot Suki, so I can find them, and break them.”

“Is that who you think did this?” Zuko asks. “Water Clan?”

Azula rolls her eyes as she scrubs the bloody bullet as clean as she can with her thumb under the water. “I was giving an example, Zuzu, Hama’s people aren’t bold enough for something like this,” she says. “Whoever shot Suki was aiming for me, it was a power grab. My money’s on the Dai Li--Long Feng’s been itching to make a play for Ozai’s Element X routes…him or the Red Lotus, though I doubt they have the means for custom-made weaponry, they’re practically barbaric…”

She trails off as she holds the cleaned bullet under the light, seeming to lose her train of thought completely.

“What is it?” Zuko asks, getting up and going to her side. He plucks the bullet out of her hold, surprised when she doesn’t put up a fight. He turns the bullet over in his hand, searching for whatever signs and symbols or colors or whatever it is that Azula’s so familiar with. He pauses as he runs the pad of his thumb over the base, finding in the center the tiniest of symbols he wouldn’t have registered if not for Azula.

“Shit,” he murmurs. The symbol is markedly Fire Clan. It isn’t their more famed insignia—that would be too obvious. Azula is right, this is a language the RCPD wouldn’t know to look for.

But it is a fire symbol, one Zuko knows from Ozai’s obsessions with old family crests dating back hundreds of years, ones he based codes off of, and marks to his most well-guarded secrets.

This is hardly one of the most important ones, but it’s up there, and the mark not of one of his assassins, but of highly-ranked initiates.

“This has to be a mistake,” Azula says.

Zuko looks at her carefully. “Azula, you had to know something like this might happen,” he tries gently.

“Nothing’s happened, someone aimed poorly, that’s all,” Azula shoots back.

“Azula, you said it yourself—if someone hit Suki, they were aiming for you,” Zuko says.

“Then whoever attacked the Boiling Rock must have overpowered one of our people and taken it,” Azula insists. “No one in the Fire Clan would turn against me—unlike you, they know what it is to be loyal to their Family.”

“Azula, this clearly belongs to one of Dad’s closest men,” Zuko says. “Who was with you at the Boiling Rock?”

“The Warden—but he wouldn’t destroy his own property, he loves his business.”

“Who else?”

Azula clenches her jaw. “Zhao,” she says quietly. She shakes her head. “But Zhao’s a coward, he doesn’t have the balls for something like this—“

“Are you sure?” Zuko asks pointedly. “He’s been Dad’s right-hand man since before you were born, you don’t think he’d want you taken out so he could take up his position?”

“Our Family doesn’t betray each other,” Azula insists again, but her voice is strained, and that shadow of fear flickers behind her eyes again. “We’re an empire built on loyalty.”

“You’re an empire built on fear,” Zuko corrects. “That’s only going to keep people loyal to you for so long before they start to rebel. With Dad out of the way, it’s not just other Clans looking to take his empire, it’s his own people, and Zhao would be at the top of that list. Now would be the time for him to strike, when Dad isn’t around to protect you—“

“I don’t need Ozai’s protection!” Azula snarls. “Or yours! I don’t need _anyone._ And even if you _were_ right about Zhao, that doesn’t explain the burning of the Sozin estate, Zhao wouldn’t do that, it makes no sense.”

“Doesn’t it? He’s taken your home, Azula, he’s left you vulnerable.”

“He was cowering behind a table when the shots rang out at the Boiling Rock!”

“Then maybe he wasn’t behind the initial attack on the club itself,” Zuko says. “But whether he was or wasn’t, he sure as hell used it to his advantage to go after you.”

Azula shakes her head, looking desperate. “He wouldn’t. None of them would.”

Zuko holds up the bullet and places it in her palm. “They did,” he says softly. “He did.”

Azula looks up at him and that shadow of fear has become a well. She clutches the bullet tight in her hand and looks away. He sees the fear in her swirling, like it’s trying to change shape, trying to become anger, the place where Azula is safest.

There’s something small about her right now, and he remembers a time when she was three years old and scared of monsters and climbed into bed with him, curling into a ball and clutching tightly to him. This of course was back before Ozai turned her into a monster herself. Zuko almost wants to hold her to him, but he’s also keenly aware of her proximity to the kitchen knives, and the fact that she might very well try to slice off his arm if he tried putting it around her.

“You should stay,” he tells her.

Azula looks at him like he’s completely lost his mind. “Excuse me?”

“You should stay here. With me. Even if you don’t believe me about Zhao, you don’t have anywhere to go. Nowhere safe.”

He watches her closely, watches her flicking through names in her mind, people she could stay with, people she trusts.

He can tell even without talking to her that the list is short. He’d be surprised if any more than Ty Lee and Mai are on it, and they’re both unavailable. If she were unafraid that her Clan had betrayed her, she could have her pick of allies to use the homes of. But he can see, even if she isn’t completely convinced of her Clan’s betrayal, that she doesn’t trust them enough to reach out. Her list of trusted friends starts and ends at two, and neither of them are here for her.

“Just crash here, we can figure out who’s behind the attacks,” Zuko says. “Maybe you’re right about Zhao, maybe he isn’t a sniveling, conniving fuckwad who’s been after Dad’s position for years. Just let me figure it out. Let me…”

_protect you_

“…pinpoint who went after you. Let me prove to you what happened. Just stay with me.”

Azula holds his gaze for a moment, then glances around the room. “This place is a dump,” she says with barely convincing carelessness. “It’s hardly fit for one person, let alone two.”

“It’s a two-bedroom,” Zuko tells her.

“The second of which will be used by Suki until she’s better,” Sokka says shortly, finally joining in on the conversation now that Azula might become a more permanent fixture. “I’m sure you can stay in the basement, get yourself used to a cell-like surrounding.”

“Or,” Zuko says quickly as anger flashes behind Azula’s eyes, “because we’re not actual monsters, you can sleep on the couch. It’s a futon. Pretty comfortable, actually.”

Azula looks carefully at Sokka, then returns her gaze to Zuko. “Suki will be staying here?” she asks.

“I’m not letting her out of my sight until I’m sure she’s okay,” Sokka says. “So yes.”

Azula ignores him. “I suppose in the interest of upholding Clan law, I should stay until I’m sure of the same,” she tells Zuko.

It’s not Clan law, Zuko knows, but doesn’t say anything. Instead he joins Sokka and Katara in moving Suki to the spare bedroom, noting the way Azula watches their every move, looking lost, and angry, and concerned.

She’s trying to balance on several crisscrossing wires right now, Zuko can tell. Both pride and denial are at war in her with regards to the Fire Clan. Whether she wants to admit it or not, she suffered the loss of Ozai from her life. She’s lost her home. She’s angry, and more likely than not to be prone to violent outbursts.

But she’s grown attached to Suki, that couldn’t be clearer. Zuko hesitates to call it _caring,_ though Azula _did_ drag her out of a burning building, so that’s something. Best just to call it an attachment for now. Azula’s ability to care for another person beyond her own personal interest in them is debatable, and although Zuko wishes more than anything that he could take this as a sign that Azula is coming around to his way of thinking, he knows better than that. He knows she considers _caring_ to be a weakness, and he knows that in her current situation, weakness is the last thing she’d ever tolerate in herself.


	10. Chapter 10

Azula is getting a little annoyed with Sokka’s barrage of threats as he leaves for work the following morning. He’s made 8 so far within the last 15 minutes, and counting.

Of note:

\- “If you move one hair out of place on Suki’s precious head, I’ll throw a boomerang at you.”

\- “When I get back, if Suki has so much as a _headache,_ I’ll throw a boomerang at you.”

\- “If you give her too much coffee, I’ll throw a boomerang at you.”

\- “Make her pancakes for breakfast, drown them in maple syrup, and pile that shit high with bacon, or I’ll throw a boomerang at you.”

\- “Use a _quiet voice_ when you talk to her, or I’ll throw a boomerang at you.”

\- “Apologize like your life depends on it, or I’ll throw a boomerang at you.”

\- “Give her all the painkillers she needs, but not too many, or I’ll throw a boomerang at you.”

\- “Treat her like a fucking queen, or I’ll slit your throat.”

Sokka isn’t scary, though he certainly seems to think he is, and Azula does her best to let his melodramatic proclamations roll off her without offering any commentary of her own. This is mostly because Zuko keeps shooting warning glares at her, which, while not exactly terrifying, do puzzle her a little.

The Zuko she remembers was sensitive, and angry, but felt so deeply he sometimes couldn’t find words. Seems these days, he still doesn’t have many profound words under his belt, but he’s mastered a look that somehow speaks volumes and fills Azula with apprehension. She finally puts her finger on it as he and Sokka finally leave the house—it’s one of pure protectiveness, and it’s almost paralyzing.

She’s left with one closing warning from Sokka:

“Don’t get any coffee or tea stains on my couch, or I’ll throw a boomerang at you.”

Followed by Zuko’s, “It’s not your couch, Sokka, you don’t even technically live here.”

Which is returned by Sokka saying, “I’m obviously going to marry you some day, Zuko, that couch is practically mine already, stop being stupid. And on that note, do you want to marry me?”

The door slams shut before Azula can hear the answer.

Whatever. She’s perfectly fine to stay here alone, knowing that Suki was gently awakened by Sokka a little earlier so that the situation could be explained calmly to her, and is currently dozing fitfully in the spare room across from Zuko’s. Azula has given her word, she won’t leave the premises so long as Suki needs taking care of. Let it be known, she _could_ leave if she wanted to. Her mother’s old safe house in the mountains notwithstanding, she has a multitude of other properties she could make use of. This is all by her choice, she’s completely in control here.

She’s also antsy.

She wants to go to Suki’s room and make sure she’s all in one piece.

She wants to go to Suki’s room and make her fall apart.

That’s no good.

She’s never done the sleeping part of sleeping with someone, and has no desire to, but she does sort of want to be there when Suki wakes up. She allows herself briefly to imagine crawling into bed with Suki. She could drag the covers off, drag her underwear off, settle herself between Suki’s legs and wake her up with her tongue.

It’s a tempting thought. But Azula is 99% sure that would be a highly unwelcome offense. That’s the sort of thing done by people who already have an established…something. She woke Ty Lee up like that a few times when Ty Lee was too clingy and drained to get out of her bed before Azula could properly kick her out and ended up staying till morning. She woke a couple other girls up like that when she felt generous enough to let them stay the night after she found another room to sleep in.

But that was different. Ty Lee and the other select few had belonged to her, even if it was only for a day, or a night.

Suki… _does_ belong to her in _some_ ways. She has her mark, after all. But despite the mark, Suki somehow has all the power in their…whatever it is. Azula has to follow what _Suki_ says she’s allowed to do when it comes to touching her, which so far, has been a definitive _nothing_. So while it’s certainly tempting to go in and claim her however she wants, to feel her come awake against her, feel her stretch and arch, hear her soft sounds of surprise, feel the sheets pulling tight as Suki’s fingers curl into them…Azula has the very distinct feeling that in reality, Suki would shove her away, slap her across the face, and Sokka would make a surprise guest appearance to throw household decorations at her.

So she waits with growing impatience for Suki to wake up all by herself, poking around Zuko’s pathetically humble abode, and shifting her thoughts from those pointless fantasies, to the more important realities of her current situation.

To be specific: the one where she chose Suki over the Element X delivery.

On the one hand, she’s not all that pleased with her decision-making back at the Boiling Rock.

On the other hand, she is incredibly intrigued to discover that she still has the ability to surprise herself.

It’s an unfortunate truth of her upbringing—she has been trained to always act in a very specific way no matter what life throws at her, aware that if she strays from that, she risks losing the power Ozai has dangled in front of her as a reward for all these years of devotion. She has had to exercise control in every single thing she does, planning her every move 10 steps ahead of actually enacting it.

But Suki not only threw a wrench into her typically flawless way of enacting a plan, she somehow made Azula throw the wrench herself.

Suki caused her to take herself utterly by surprise. And that’s no small thing.

Here’s another not-small thing: someone in the Boiling Rock took her by surprise last night, too.

Azula prides herself on her ability to read people. It’s a skill she’s honed since childhood, and she’s sharpened it to perfection over the years. But someone betrayed her last night. Someone took her home from her. Someone took everything from her.

Zuko is convinced it’s the work of someone in the Fire Clan, and Azula knows that eventually she’ll have to consider that a possibility, but her head is still spinning with staunch denial. Her Clan isn’t weak like the others. They’re loyal. They’ve always shown a deep fealty to Ozai. And they know her. They’ve seen her rise through the ranks. They know she’s capable, they know she has the same political ties her father did, they know she’s business savvy, that she knows the ins and outs of the black market like the back of her hand. Several of them have even served her personally in various jobs she’s helped her father orchestrate and execute.

These are her people. Ozai’s absence wouldn’t just cause them all to turn on her. They know better than that. They know _her_ better than that.

The Fire Clan is known for its loyalty to its people. Have there been traitors? Of course. But they’re few and far between, and they’ve always been dealt with swiftly, brutally, and publicly, to deter any potential repeat performances. They should know to fear her. They should.

Still, Azula can’t help hearing Zhao’s warning about her lack of experience in her head—specifically about her failure to have taken a life yet, whether by her own hands, or by order.

Ozai dirtied his hands in the beginning, when he was first building his empire. When he had something to prove.

Maybe Azula should have taken that into more serious account. She isn’t building a criminal empire from scratch like he did, she’s inheriting it…but such an extreme shift in power may have required a more violent display of her station.

But to have to take a _life…_ that’s something she’d thought she could avoid. She’d thought achieving what her father hadn’t, achieving complete and total monopoly over the Element X trade would accomplish the respect she craved.

Maybe she was wrong.

Maybe brute force did count for something. Maybe it was the only language her more cowardly followers understood.

Maybe she really did lose her people. Maybe they were never hers at all.

Maybe she’s never had the power or control she was so convinced she did.

She jolts at the sound of Suki’s door opening down the hall, becoming more comfortably warm when the woman herself appears in the living room.

Suki has showered and is now walking around in a giant, faded blue T-shirt that Azula has to assume is Sokka’s. It looks to be some oversized sports jersey from high school—the South Side Wolves, it reads in faded lettering with a peeling wolf mascot in the middle. The shirt is huge on Suki, stretched and loose from age with a couple holes in the sides, the hem reaching down almost mid-thigh. She does not appear to be wearing pants of any kind underneath.

Azula would like to say that she comes up with a very clever, very sexy thing to say to greet her, but when the over-sized T-shirt slips off Suki’s shoulder, her mouth goes a little dry, and her brain a little blank. She knows the other shoulder is red and marred with the stitched-up bullet wound, but the sweep of _this_ shoulder up to Suki’s neck looks like something Azula would very much like to bite into and mark up in a far more pleasurable way.

That said, Azula’s clever and sexy greeting is relegated to the slightly stupid observation, “You’re awake.”

Suki lifts her eyebrows, a careful hint of a smile playing at the corner of her lips. Fire slithers through Azula’s veins at her look. She really is beautiful.

“Thanks to you, I’m told,” Suki replies, making her way slowly to the kitchen to join Azula.

Azula hands her a mug of coffee, and Suki accepts with her left hand, bending her right arm with a small wince to cup it between both hands. Azula watches her movements carefully. She’s intimately familiar with the way a bullet can shred through muscle and shatter bone, but Suki seems fairly mobile. Sokka’s sister must have been right in her assessment the night before; the internal damage is miraculously limited.

“It looks worse than it is,” Katara had assured them all last night. “She’s lucky. In a few weeks, she should have full mobility back. It’s gonna hurt like hell until then, though.”

“How are you?” Azula asks awkwardly.

Suki leans back against the island counter across from her. “In desperate need of painkillers,” she says.

“Ah.” Azula turns and snags the bottle of painkillers Zuko pointed her toward earlier off the built-in counter. She opens it, handing one pill to Suki, who gives her a look.

“I have a hole in my shoulder and hit the back of my head on a table last night,” she points out. “I’m not sure just one’s gonna cut it.”

“I don’t doubt that, but see, your ex keeps threatening to throw a stick at me unless I take perfect care of you,” Azula tells her. “So I’m afraid you’re limited to one unless I’m permitted to give you more.”

Suki gives a small, guarded huff of a laugh, accepting the pill and swallowing it back. “I didn’t realize you followed orders so well,” she says, and there’s both an edge, and a lightness to her tone that Azula isn’t sure how to quantify.

“I’m not following orders,” she says stiffly. “I’m upholding my vow to keep you safe.”

“I thought your vow was to not hurt me.”

“That’s splitting hairs.”

“Is it?”

“Would you rather I leave?”

This comes out harsher than Azula means it to, and she realizes to her annoyance that she’s becoming defensive, readying herself to be turned away again.

Suki looks at her closely for a moment and Azula is struck by those stormy blue eyes, the studious crinkle of her brow and the curious pursing of those full lips.

Finally she shakes her head. “No, I don’t want you to leave,” she says, and Azula forces herself to ignore her feelings of relief.

_Relief_ isn’t what she should feel when it comes to Suki's tolerance of her continued presence. _Triumph_ is what she should feel. And satisfaction. Relief would imply that she would experience some sense of pain or loss if Suki turned her away, and that simply isn’t the case.

“Well good,” she says airily. “Because I wasn’t going to leave anyway. I’m keeping you safe. I gave my word, and I intend to keep it.”

Suki smiles cautiously, and fuck is it ever beautiful. “You’re starting to sound like me,” she says.

Azula rolls her eyes. “Yes, apparently I formed a Stockholm Syndrome attachment to you at the safe house,” she drawls. “Seems you and I are fated to take turns taking each other captive and being forced to keep each other safe.”

“I think you’re the one forcing yourself to keep me safe,” Suki points out, and Azula can hardly stand that enchanting spark of humor in her eyes, even despite the dig. “You did mark me when you were a teenager, so you’re really the only one to blame for being ‘forced’ to look after me.”

Azula sets her jaw. Sometimes…Suki is very annoying. And irritatingly charming. Azula isn’t sure why her playful call-out makes her simultaneously furious and strangely turned on, but it’s making her want more than anything to shut her up by fucking her against the counter. Maybe it’s just because she was expecting Suki to continue to be cold toward her, and this humor is a new color Azula isn’t quite sure what to do with. Apparently dragging a girl out of a burning building is a good way to get her to warm up to you somewhat.

“Why don’t you take a seat and I’ll make you some breakfast,” Azula mutters, turning to Zuko’s fridge and trying to locate everything she needs to make the pancakes with bacon Sokka demanded she make for Suki.

“Can you actually cook, or should I look for a fire extinguisher?” Suki asks behind her, sounding entirely too amused.

“Yes I can cook,” Azula says stiffly. Which is true. Azula is a phenomenal cook. “Is that so hard to believe?”

“Kinda,” Suki admits. “You don’t exactly give off…homey…vibes.”

Azula smirks in spite of herself, straightening and starting to search through Zuko’s perfectly organized drawer of pots and pans, and laying her choices out on the built-in counter.

“Well then you’re about to be pleasantly surprised,” she says.

“I already am sort of surprised,” Suki replies, voice soft all of a sudden. “Not just about the cooking, although…that, too.”

Azula looks back at her over her shoulder, lifting a questioning eyebrow. “What else are you surprised at?” she asks.

“I’m surprised you chose me last night,” Suki tells her, an arresting note of earnestness grounding her tone. It’s sharp enough to almost be accusatory, but soft enough to almost be apologetic.

Azula feels herself tighten up defensively. “I don’t know what you mean by _chose,”_ she says, infusing a clear warning into her words.

“Azula, there’s no way you had time to get both me and that bag out,” Suki says. “You saved me, and left the bag. Didn’t you.”

Azula shrugs tightly, returning her attention to the pots and pans, turning her back to Suki.

“Why did you choose me?” Suki presses.

Azula huffs. Honestly, she’s spent the last 12 hours wondering the same thing.

There are several possible answers. Unfortunately, each one leads to further questions. To be exact:

Why choose Suki? Because Azula doesn’t want Suki to get hurt. Why doesn’t Azula want Suki to get hurt? Because Suki is somehow special. In what way is Suki special? She’s beautiful, she belongs to her, she has this very bad but fascinating habit of throwing herself into fire in order to protect people, she’s sharp, and soft, and tempting, always so tempting…tempting enough that prolonging her presence in Azula’s life actually seemed worth the price of a shipment whose ultimate use might have jumpstarted her legacy. Why was it worth it…?

“There will be other shipments,” Azula answers shortly, angry heat scorching across her skin at her own thoughts. “There wouldn’t be more…you.” She glances at Suki’s empty cup on the counter and holds out her hand. “Pass me that, I’ll get you some more coffee.”

Suki gives her that studious look one more time, then drops her gaze, correctly sensing that Azula is finished with her answer.

Azula can’t help but be somewhat taken with Suki’s clear desire to hear more, and her clear frustration that she isn’t going to get any more out of her. She watches as Suki, out of habit, reaches with her right hand to pick up her mug. She hisses with surprised pain as her hand closes around it, and unable to regain control over the muscle spasm brought on by her shoulder, she drops the mug to the floor, shattering it.

“Shit,” Suki curses under her breath.

“Relax, I’ve got it,” Azula says, stooping to pick up the broken ceramic.

“I can’t believe I did that, that was so…stupid…”

“No harm done,” Azula tells her, straightening back up with her collected pieces of ceramic piled in her palm. “Zuko will blame me one way or another, so don’t worry, you won’t have to face his wrath.” She gives a teasing smile. “You should be more careful with that arm, though. I hate to see you broken.”

So saying, she places the ceramic shards on the counter beside Suki, who looks embarrassed but offers an uncertain breath of a laugh. A blush darkens her cheeks as Azula steps closer, and Azula can hear her trying to keep her breath slow and even. It’s a sweet attempt at trying to seem in control, but Azula can feel the heat coming off her, can practically hear the racing of her pulse, and it draws her in like some magnetic current.

She hooks her finger experimentally under the neckline of Suki’s shirt, running it along the seam before gently tugging it down to expose Suki’s wounded shoulder. Suki isn’t able to completely stifle the sharpness of her inhale at the sudden exposure, and Azula feels arousal pooling between her legs at Suki’s shaky exhale when she glides her fingers softly from the pulled neckline to drift just beside the bullet wound.

“Look what they did to you, pretty girl,” Azula murmurs without thinking. Suki’s inhale is jagged, and when Azula looks back up at her, Suki is biting her lip, eyes dark. She’s no longer succeeding in even the _semblance_ of self-control, her chest rising and falling visibly as her breath quickens.

“No one’s allowed to hurt you like that again,” Azula tells her quietly, dipping her head and pressing her lips feather-light to the bullet wound. Pleasure dances through her core as Suki’s breath hitches and she jerks forward just the slightest bit like she’s searching for more contact. It fills Azula with unparalleled satisfaction that that unconscious little movement was caused by her. She did that.

Encouraged, she drags her lips softly away from the wound, pressing her mouth to Suki’s collarbone before kissing her way slowly up the sweep of her neck. She dares to nip ever so softly, wishing she didn’t have to be gentle with her when Suki utters a small whimper at the feeling. No, if Azula could have her way, she’d absolutely tear Suki apart. She knows Suki could take it, she could take anything Azula gave her, she can feel it.

Annoyed with her frustrating tendency to create her own obstacles, Azula finally separates from her, leaning her head back just enough to get a look at Suki. Suki’s looking up at her with pleading eyes, and Azula isn’t sure why it’s that very specific look that brings it all home, but somehow the memory of last night comes crashing into her. Betrayed by her own Family, her home taken from her, her legacy…whether it was treachery or not, the fact remains that Azula suddenly has no sense of control, no sense of power, nothing that belongs to her.

Nothing, except Suki.

Sudden possessiveness flaring to life in her veins, Azula presses forward, kissing Suki hard, with an aggression she hadn’t intended. Suki melts against her almost instantly, her good arm coming up to drape over Azula’s shoulders, fingers in her hair. Azula deepens the kiss, tongue delving and tasting, pulling breath from her, demanding her submission.

This is all Azula wants, just to control her, to command every breath, every sound, every movement. Her world is falling apart, but Suki…Suki’s here for her to use however she wants her. She rocks forward against her so Suki’s back hits the edge of the counter, pleasure lancing through her as Suki’s tongue strokes against hers. Azula’s hands go to her hips, one wandering further to squeeze her ass, and Suki moans in surprise, pulling her closer, kissing her harder. Quickly losing herself to the feeling of being needed, Azula pushes a leg between Suki’s thighs, continuing to knead at Suki’s ass as she drags her lips away from Suki’s and kisses down the side of her neck.

Suki’s nails rake down across her shoulders and she gives a small cry, head tilting back. Azula locks her arm around her waist, the hand that had been kneading at her ass coming up to palm at her breast instead. Fuck, she feels amazing. She can feel Suki’s nipple hardening under her hand through her shirt and hums in satisfaction, rolling and pinching just enough to coax another whimper out of her. She tugs at the hem of Suki’s shirt with the hand at her waist, pulling it aside to slip her fingers under the waistband of her underwear.

She almost doesn’t hear it, she’s so close to what she wants, but she’s forced to attention when Suki grabs her wrist to stop her, panting out, “Azula—wait—“

Azula doesn’t want to wait, she wants Suki now, all hers. She decides to ignore her, just keep pushing, that’s the only way to get anything in life is just to keep pushing, no matter what…

“Azula, stop…stop.”

This time her words break through. Azula stills, her hands slowly leaving Suki to rest on the edge of the counter instead. She keeps her face buried in Suki’s neck for a moment, though, catching her breath as Suki does the same, reigning in control over herself as she breathes against her flushed skin.

Finally she lifts her head so she can look Suki in the eye, noting how thoroughly turned on Suki looks despite her command to stop.

“Did I hurt you?” Azula asks, trying to keep her tone neutral, not sure if what she’s feeling is anger, or disappointment, or concern.

Suki shakes her head, unconsciously licking her lips. It makes Azula want to dive back in, but she holds herself in check.

“I just don’t think this is a good idea right now,” Suki tells her quietly. “Sokka told me about what happened…about your home…and the bullet…with the marks…” She’s stroking Azula’s hair in a way that’s oddly soothing. “I think you’re spiraling. And I don’t...I don't want to be part of your spiral.”

Azula wants to protest, but keeps herself quiet. Protesting sounds like begging, and she won’t do that, not for anything.

“I’m sorry,” she says instead, stepping back to lean against the opposite counter. It comes out low and defensive. She means it, she thinks, but it’s not a sentiment she often puts words to.

“You don’t need to be sorry,” Suki tells her. “That was…” Her face flushes and Azula sees her knuckles whiten against the edge of the counter, like she’s holding tight to what she _should_ do, so she doesn’t slip and lose herself in what she really wants. “I just think that right now, this shouldn’t…that you shouldn’t be…impulsive.”

“I’m not being impulsive, I’ve been trying to get into your pants for over a week now,” Azula grumbles.

Suki actually smiles, letting out a small breath of a laugh. That smile is awfully contagious, and Azula feels her more riotous emotions cooling down a bit, her frustrations easing away. Her lips tug into a faint smile as well, in spite of herself.

“You really can’t be seduced, can you,” she says. “Not even after I’ve pulled you out of a burning building.”

Suki’s eyes are soft. “Not even then,” she says. She pulls the stretched neckline of her shirt back to a more appropriate position, clutching it closed. “I just think we should focus on what’s important. Someone clearly wants you dead. We should be working on trying to find out who, and how we can keep you safe. And…”

“And how to get me to play nice and be Zuko’s well-behaved little sister,” Azula infers.

“Would that really be such a bad thing?”

“Zuko abandoned me,” Azula says firmly. “He left our family. He left me alone. Forgive me for not exactly trusting him or wanting to be just like him.” She sighs. “But yes, fine, I guess I can see the appeal of finding out who’s trying to kill me. I make no promises about my behavior afterward, though.”

“Your behavior, as in becoming a crime lord, or your behavior toward me?”

Azula smirks. “Take your pick. Choose wisely, you only get one.”

Suki rolls her eyes, but there’s genuine amusement in the corner of her lips, barely hidden. “Don’t make me regret taking a bullet for you,” she says. She juts her chin at the stove. “Now are you making me breakfast, or what?”

Azula turns obediently to the stove, uncertainty and the last burning embers of lust coming together inside her to make her thoroughly confused. She isn’t used to being told _no,_ something that should infuriate her, but strangely…doesn’t. There’s the continued game of it, of course, but there’s also something about Suki’s earnestness which, while confounding, settles warmly in her chest.

She’s bothered, though, very bothered, by Suki’s tease about not making her regret taking a bullet for her. Somehow it hadn’t occurred to her until now that Suki is the first person she’s ever put in front of a gun. It wasn’t intentional, of course, but it was because of her. She thinks it would hurt quite a bit more than being shot if Suki ever did regret taking a bullet for her, and she hopes beyond hope that day never comes.


	11. Chapter 11

Telling Azula to stop was one of the more physically difficult things Suki has had to do in recent memory. In fact, it had required pretty much all of her brain power just to remember what the word “stop” was. Azula was remarkably talented at snatching her thoughts away from her as soon as they began to form, and frankly, Suki considers her success in pronouncing the word “stop” correctly to be nothing short of a miracle.

And she was right to stop her. She stands by it. Azula _is_ spiraling, she _is_ lashing out and trying to latch onto anything and everything that will let her feel like she’s in control again.

Suki can relate in some ways. Not to the spiral exactly, or even the need for control, but to the lashing out and reaching for whatever she can part. This isn’t the first time she’s been hurt on a job. She’s very familiar with the way it feels to come out of something life-threatening—it makes you want to run and fight and fuck, anything and everything to feel your heart pounding, blood racing, breath filling your lungs. She isn’t spiraling the way Azula is, but she _is_ reaching out for anything to give her that rush of life, and the combination of her desperate rush and Azula’s desperate spiral…not good. Suki’s worst decisions have always been made as a result of survivor’s adrenaline rush. When it comes to her and Azula, the entire situation is ripe for absolutely nothing but destruction.

Especially given Azula’s need for absolute control. Which, in this case, means controlling Suki, and Suki…well, she likes to think she has a bit more dignity than that. She likes to think she wouldn’t allow herself to be used just because it felt…well, it felt fucking amazing…Suki doesn’t think anyone has ever left her that turned on that quickly before.

“You really can’t be seduced, can you,” Azula had said. Suki almost has to laugh. She can. She almost was. So fucking close.

…Which is the other part of why she had to stop her. To prove she could. And to prove that even when pulled under that forceful of a tide of lust, she could break free of it, and could still retain that one iota of power over Azula.

But she did get an unexpected rush from getting Azula to stop. That’s something she wasn’t expecting. And if she really thinks about it, if she _really_ wants to be honest, somewhere way in the back of her mind she thinks saying “stop” was more of a dare than a command. Daring Azula to keep pushing her boundaries, but also daring herself to see if she’d really be able to resist if Azula didn’t listen.

Suki’s not proud of that. She’s never been one for mind games or power plays, not even a little bit. But with Azula, and this insistent, reckless energy humming through her veins, Suki finds herself wanting to push, wanting see what she can get Azula to do. In some ways, wanting to get her to snap, because she doesn’t think anything could possibly make her feel more alive than giving in to her.

She’s glad Azula listened, though. Which is to say, she is and she isn’t. For her own libido’s sake, she wishes Azula hadn’t stopped. But at the same time, it was almost exceedingly hot that she _did_ stop. Azula’s need for control seems to start with herself, and Suki will admit to finding things like self-control and a resolute sense of honor and discipline to be insanely attractive traits. Not to mention it’s nice to know Azula does have a conscience and a vested interest in keeping her safe beyond just her Clan’s morally confusing dogma.

Add that to the fact that Azula is an amazing kisser and the fact that all Suki can really concentrate on is her survivor’s adrenaline rush, and Suki is left with the sort of pressing issue of wanting Azula’s tongue back in her mouth as soon as possible.

The idea of it makes it almost impossible to sit at the table and try to eat pancakes and bacon with Azula like a civilized human being after all that, not when every atom in her body is urging her to try again, dare her again, see if she’ll listen this time, or if she’ll fall for it, break all those Clan laws she’s stuck so firmly to and fuck her against every surface in the house.

No, those thoughts don’t exactly make for an easy breakfast experience, and she excuses herself before she can even finish half of what’s in front of her, claiming she just needs to lie down, that her shoulder is acting up.

She closes her bedroom door behind her, leaning back against it with a slow exhale, feeling a demanding throbbing between her legs. The more she thinks about how things _might_ have gone, the less sure she is of her decision, the more she regrets not letting Azula have her way. But no, she knows if she had given in, she’d have regretted that, too.

But she _really_ regrets this, and the more she tries not to think about Azula ignoring her command to stop, the more firmly the thought takes hold, and Suki’s pulse is racing with ideas and images that hardly seem like her own. Unthinkingly, she dips a shaky hand beneath the waistband of her underwear, feeling her breath catch, heat rising high in her cheeks when her fingers practically slip against the slickness coating the apex of her thighs, brought on by a storm of _what if’s,_ each one hotter than the last.

Fuck’s sake. Azula just _had_ to go and grow a conscience, _had_ to choose Suki over what she claimed was a legacy-making drug trade, _had_ to rescue her from a burning building, _had_ to become almost obsessively devoted to overseeing her return to health. Suki was doing a fantastic job holding her own against Azula’s advances when Azula was being an insufferable bitch. Well. She was doing a _good_ job holding her own when Azula was being an insufferable bitch. Or…she was at least doing a somewhat _adequate_ job holding her own when Azula was being an insufferable bitch, give her a fucking break.

But somehow, Azula showing even the slightest hint of humanity is doing… _this_ to her.

She presses her head back against the door, squeezing her eyes shut as she runs her fingers through the slickness of her folds, coaxing a rolling wave of arousal to life, still not quite able to believe how turned on she is. She tries to reign in her thoughts. She should go back out there, eat her stupid fucking pancakes, lie to herself and pretend that she’s succeeded in keeping her dignity in tact.

Or she could…

Suki bites her lip, glancing down at the door, as if it has some say in this.

It wouldn’t take her long. And she fucking needs it. All those _what if’s_ are starting to swirl and build again, and she can make this quick, get it out of her system, and pretend it never happened.

Her libido-entrenched brain is convinced by this feeble rationalization, and she removes her hand from herself, making her way over to her bed. She lies down with a small wince as her shoulder twinges, but even that isn’t enough to quell the storm of _what if’s_ in her mind. She presses back against the pillow, hand returning to its place between her thighs and she barely contains a moan, breath already coming faster at the promise of release.

She lets her fingers stroke at her center, legs rubbing against each other as she tries to pick the _what if_ she wants the most, the one that will get her off hard enough that she can put this whole thing behind her. There’s so many of them, and she’s already so close, she doesn’t want just one of them, she wishes there were a way to have all her _what if’s_ play out in her head at once, get herself off to all of them in one go.

On second thought, that might kill her.

Her hips jerk against her hand as if of their own accord, urging her to get on with it while she can. It doesn’t matter which one, none of it’s real anyway—sure, pick the one where Azula doesn’t listen when she says “stop” and bends her over the counter…or the one where she slams her against the wall…or fuck it, the one where the Boiling Rock was never attacked and Azula brought her back to the Sozin estate as planned, her prisoner again, maybe successfully instated as Firelord, and would that really be so bad…it wouldn’t be, Suki thinks feverishly as she rubs her fingers urgently against herself, sending her senses spinning…it wouldn’t be so bad if she got to feel like this…

She jolts at the sound of pots and pans being loaded into the sink, a blaring reminder that Azula—the real Azula—is right on the other side of the door, and could hear…

Fuck, what if she heard her?

Suki’s eyes roll shut and she arches slowly, sinking her fingers in deep. It wouldn’t be difficult. One little moan, one little cry, and Azula would hear her, and she’d know, she’d know _exactly_ what Suki was doing. And she’d know Suki was thinking about _her._

Of course she’d know. Suki squeezes her thighs shut as waves of pleasure begin growing in size and intensity. Azula would know, because she’s smug, and she’s arrogant, and she’s gotten away with it twice now, almost getting Suki to lose control.

And what if she…fuck, what if she heard her, and came in? She would. She’d come in like she had the right to it. If Suki’s fucking herself to images of Azula, Azula would absolutely consider it her right to witness it. And Suki would stop, humiliated, and Azula would smirk at her, that infuriating smirk, and she’d step forward, she’d get on the bed, she’d tell Suki to continue. And Suki would, of course she would, because even though Suki has _never_ liked being told what to do, there’s something about Azula that makes her want to give up control. And maybe Azula would mount her and start fucking her in earnest, or maybe she’d just watch her, maybe guide her hand. Doesn’t matter, as long as she’s in control, as long as that pressure keeps building, keeps taking her, fingers moving faster, pleasure nearly reaching its peak…

Suki just about topples out of bed as her phone rings aggressively on the nightstand, shattering through her fantasy and causing her orgasm to vanish cruelly just before she can reach it. Instinctively, she flails her hand out to silence the stupid phone, and, just as it did with the mug, her shoulder spasms, and she knocks her phone to the floor.

 _“Fuck’s sake,”_ she hisses, rolling out of bed like it’s on fire and scrambling for her phone, stupidly scooping it up and answering it out of reflex.

“Hello?”

_“Hey, sleepyhead, you’re awake!”_

“Sokka,” Suki breathes, shifting back on her haunches to lean against the bed frame. Her head collapses back against the mattress in frustration and she does her best to wrestle control over her galloping heart rate.

 _“How ya feelin’ kid?”_ Sokka asks, his jovial tone successfully masking _almost_ all hints of concern. Suki only recognizes them because she’s known him so long.

“Been better,” she grits out, slowing her breathing as best she can. _Just fantasizing about Azula fucking me in just about the most disrespectful way possible._

_“I’ll bet. So listen, I’m on my way over, just gotta stop at your apartment to pick up some clothes for you. Any favorites I should bring?”_

“Anything’s fine.”

_“So your mermaid costume from Halloween last year, got it. Also, reminder that Katara wants me to bring you by headquarters for an x-ray once she’s on call tonight, so make yourself presentable. Gotta make sure you’re all shipshape.”_

“Sure.”

Sokka hesitates. _“You sure you’re doing okay? You sound a little off. Azula hasn’t done anything has she?”_

Azula has done…and also _not_ done…a lot…and Suki has absolutely no idea how to answer that question.

“She made me pancakes,” she offers finally. The fact that Suki was unable to eat them due to being too turned on to function is irrelevant. So is the fact that she excused herself from the table in order to get herself off to thoughts of the wannabe crime lord.

 _“So she’s done one good thing in her life, that’s a start, I guess,”_ Sokka says.

“She also saved my life, Sokka. So, two.”

 _“She’s the one who put you in danger in the first place,”_ Sokka counters.

Which is actually a good point, and something for Suki to keep in mind for times like these when she’s feeling more…pro-Azula. In what Suki has to imagine has been a lifetime of a thousand wrong things, Azula doing _one_ right thing doesn’t exactly even the scales. That’s a very good thing to remember.

But also…

“She didn’t really put me in danger, I’m the one who stayed for her,” she points out.

_And she stayed for me._

Sokka grunts. _“You know, I miss the days when the people we protected were worth protecting,”_ he grumbles. _“And before you say it—I know that’s kind of a shitty thing to say, but…it used to be that you put your life on the line for people who couldn’t protect themselves. I mean, last time you got hurt, it was because you were protecting a foreign ambassador trying to set up a food relief program from local thugs, and the time before that, you got hurt protecting the former mistress of an Air Clan boss from being assassinated. And the time before that, it was a family who was being hounded by that creepy loan shark.”_

“And the time before that, I got scratched on the arm by a mean raccoon who was going after Aang’s cat.”

_“Exactly!”_

“Sokka, I was kidding.”

_“…Well…still. Point is, we’re supposed to help good people. And Momo.”_

“I’m pretty sure Aang’s philosophy has always been that we help _all_ people who are in need of it.”

_“Okay, but Aang…is Aang. And I think even he would argue that Azula isn’t exactly…”_

“Isn’t exactly what?”

_“Isn’t exactly worth…getting shot over. She’s made her choices, and those choices have landed her where she is. And I feel for Zuko, I really, really do, and I’ll support him through everything. But at the same time, I don’t want you getting hurt just because he’s trying to rehabilitate someone who doesn’t even want to be rehabilitated, and who doesn’t seem to have any major qualms about taking people down with her.”_

Suki is quiet for a moment, before remarking, “I didn’t know you knew the word ‘qualm’.”

_“Har har.”_

Suki smiles, then looks toward the door, smile fading as her thoughts return to Azula. “You’re right,” she admits finally. “Azula has made her choices, and they’ve been…mostly not good. But she did choose me at the Boiling Rock last night. And she chose to come to Zuko for help. Maybe it’s sort of a good sign that when things get bad for her, she chooses us.”

Sokka makes a grumpy _harrumph_ noise. _“Alright two good choices are…I guess…better than none.”_

“Three good choices,” Suki corrects. “Pancakes, remember?”

Another unconvinced grunt from Sokka, and Suki realizes she’s just spent a lot of energy defending Azlula, which, if you’d asked her seven days ago, is the last thing she’d have ever expected to do.

 _It’s survivor’s adrenaline rush,_ she reminds herself. Surviving near-death experiences only to immediately make out with the hottest woman she’s ever seen is a recipe for intense feelings. And horniness. And possibly misplaced loyalty.

It’s fine, she thinks as she and Sokka hang up. Eventually it’ll work its way out of her system.

*

Katara assigns Suki homework in the form of various physical therapy exercises after getting a look at her x-rayed shoulder.

“These are gonna be a pain in the ass,” Katara tells her. “But you need to do them every day, pain or no pain. The last thing we need is that shoulder freezing up.”

Toph nearly runs into her and Sokka as they make for Zuko’s car to return home.

“Hey, you’re back from your banishment with the Princess of Evil!” Toph says. “Heard you got in a bar fight in the middle of a burning building—that is bad _ass,_ major respect.”

So saying, she gives Suki an affectionate punch to the arm that almost sends Suki flying.

“Son of a _bitch,”_ Suki curses before she can stop herself, cradling her arm while Sokka begins berating Toph loudly enough that a few of the other Avatar Security agents pause in their work and look over in concern.

“Suki is wounded and fragile and precious, you apologize to her right now!” Sokka shouts.

“Jeez, Moon Boy, calm your tits, how was I supposed to know?” Toph says, pushing him aside. “Sorry, Suki,” she adds.

“It’s fine,” Suki replies meekly, trying and utterly failing to sound unaffected. Toph is several years younger than her, but she’s also the toughest woman Suki’s ever met, and Suki always feels the need to act just as tough to impress her.

She also never tires of Toph calling Sokka “Moon Boy”—a nickname she gave him after learning the girl Sokka refers to as his first love from elementary school went to astronomy camp one summer and then moved away to another city to attend an intensive science-based boarding school with ambitions toward becoming the first woman to land on the moon.

“Haha, Yue chose the moon over you,” Toph teased when she found out. Sokka refused to talk to her for a week.

Over the next few days, Sokka actually spends a fair amount of time yelling at people on Suki’s behalf. It’s not exactly a surprise—Sokkais known for being overly protective. He’s started shit with both strangers and friends over the years in defense of Suki, Katara, and above all, Zuko, whose often fragile sense of self worth is something Sokka has pledged himself the sole guardian of.

It’s sweet. But it can get a little overbearing at times.

Suki’s other surprise guardian is Azula, who trails after her every movement to make sure no harm comes to her. She’s perfectly well-behaved, and hasn’t made a single pass at her since their encounter in the kitchen, not even dropping a hint of innuendo to her words, or needlessly touching her in any way. It’s…bizarre. And frustrating. Especially since Suki still has a series of _what if’s_ swirling in her head. It’s not the intense storm it was the first day, but it’s hard to ignore, especially at night.

Azula seems more shadow than actual person these days, following her from room to room, then pointedly ignoring her, sort of like a house cat who doesn’t want to be caught _liking_ someone. Suki hates to admit it, but she thinks she misses Azula’s overt attempts at trying to seduce her. That, or she’s still just kind of riding the adrenaline rush, and is feeling sort of attached to her—probably for no other reason than the fact that Azula rescued her from a burning building.

Acts of heroism are sexy, okay, even when committed by morally iffy people.

Morally iffy people who can kiss like… _that._

Suki tries not to think about that part too much, but finds it sort of impossible not to any time she makes eye contact with Azula.

Which Azula seems to be making an effort not to do. She spends a lot of time going over things with Zuko in trying to pinpoint who’s behind the large scale attack at Boiling Rock, the fire at the Sozin estate, and the attempt on Azula’s life—little snatches of intelligence Zuko has been able to unearth with the help of his shadier contacts. Azula isn’t exactly _nice_ to him, seeming to prefer pointing out the holes in each theory of his with a cutting tongue and a roll of her eyes.

When she isn’t coldly smacking down his ideas, she’s simply quiet, seemingly consumed with private thoughts she has no interest in sharing. It’s in these moments that Suki finds herself drawn to her most. There’s a whole world going on in Azula’s head, things she’s struggling with that Suki can’t help but be curious about. Having never run so much as a business of her own beyond the lemonade stand she built at her friend’s house when she was six, she can’t imagine the thoughts and anxieties of someone who’s spent her entire life being groomed to run something as complex and wide-reaching as a criminal empire. Only to have it snatched from her grip at the last second.

On her seventh night of good behavior, Azula backslides a bit.

Having been unable to sleep all that well ever since…well, ever since being assigned to Azula…Suki is wide awake at midnight, taking herself through her PT exercises as quietly as she can. Her ears perk up at the sound of the floor creaking out in the living room, and the click of the front door being unlocked.

She drops the bands she was working with and makes her way to her door, opening it and poking her head out just in time to see Azula disappear quietly outside.

That can’t be good.

Unthinkingly, she makes her way for the door, slipping on her shoes and following her outside. She peers over the hedges to see Azula getting into Zuko’s car, and starting up the engine.

Of course she is.

Suki scampers across the driveway to the car, knocking loudly on the driver’s seat window as she reaches it.

Azula jumps, eyes going wide when she sees Suki standing outside the car. With an annoyed exhale, she rolls down the window.

“What?” she asks.

Suki lifts her eyebrows. “Oh, nothing,” she says. “Just wondering where you’re sneaking off to in the middle of the night.” She crosses her arms. “I could’ve sworn you said stealing cars was just phase you went through when you were 14. You seem to be making kind of a habit of this.”

Sokka’s jeep is still in the shop after having been stolen, borderline destroyed, and abandoned by Azula, and Sokka never fails to bring that point up when he’s in the mood to pick a fight with her.

Azula’s fingers tap agitatedly on the steering wheel in a way that reminds Suki distinctly of Zuko. “I’m just…taking a drive to clear my head,” she says.

“At midnight.”

“Yes, at midnight.”

Suki looks at her critically, then says, “Fine. I’ll come with you.”

“No, don’t—“ Azula starts, but Suki is already circling around the car and sliding into the passenger seat. She reaches awkwardly across herself to shut the door, not interested in making a fool of herself by trying to pull it closed with her injured arm.

“Well?” Suki prompts.

Azula looks incredibly irritated, but shifts the car into gear and peels out.

Suki is quiet for a time, watching as the meager neighborhood begins moving inward and tangling into the rougher bramble of the city. They wind through the crisscrossing streets, skirting some places in a way that seems very pointed to Suki. Like Azula is purposefully avoiding certain neighborhoods. Maybe ones that are controlled by other Clans. Maybe it’s a habit she’s formed over the years. The layout of Republic City is probably very different to her than it is to Suki, marked not by the more well-known boroughs and neighborhoods, but by Clan territory, and signs only she and her people would understand.

She looks over at Azula, whose concentrated frown is illuminated only briefly in the light of passing street lamps and oncoming headlights that carve the shape of her face in all its sharpness, all its shadow.

“Where are we going, really?” Suki asks after a while.

Azula sighs. “The Sozin estate,” she answers.

Suki tilts her head in surprise. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?” she asks carefully. “It’s been burned down, you’re probably not going to find any clues there about who went after you, and it could be dangerous to go back…”

“I’m not looking for clues,” Azula tells her. She says nothing more as they reach the upper west side of the city, speeding along into the more elegant sprawl of residences not trapped in the jungle of the inner city. From here, they turn onto a long, perfectly paved drive leading up to a massive set of gold wrought-iron gates connecting to a marble wall that surrounds a vast property which Suki believes must have once held a house that could easily fit twenty or more of Zuko’s inside.

Now, however, the building in question is largely skeletal and in ruin, much of it disintegrated into ash. What still stands is scorched, and blackened, ragged but rearing proudly above the drive like it’s announcing its stubborn survival to anyone who can see it.

Azula cuts the engine just outside the steps of the house and its spiderweb of yellow crime scene tape, leaving the headlights on to illuminate the remaining vestiges of the house. Taking a breath, she gets out, slamming the car door behind her.

Suki follows her in surprise.

“Azula, you can’t go in there,” she says.

“Why not? It’s still my home.”

“It’s not safe. There’s crime scene tape all over the place.”

“Oh no, how will I ever get through it?” Azula mutters, stepping pointedly over said tape. Suki follows her, reaching out to grab her hand, stopping her.

“Seriously, it’s not safe,” she tells her. “Internal damage like that’ll weaken the whole structure. One wrong step could bring the whole thing down on you.”

Azula laughs, turning to her. “You say that like you have a lot of experience with burnt down buildings.”

“Well I was a firefighter before I joined Avatar Security, so I should hope so.”

Azula smiles in a way that’s somehow both proud, and a little pained. “Of course you were a firefighter,” she huffs with an odd fondness. “All that leaping into burning buildings had to pay off somewhere.”

Suki shifts her hold on Azula wrist, letting her grip loosen and become more gentle, thumb brushing against the top of her hand.

“It did,” she says with a small smile. “And speaking as a former firefighter, and your current bodyguard, and…whatever else… I’m asking you to not go into that building. I’m supposed to keep you out of danger. Can you at least _try_ to let me do my job? Just once?”

When Azula still continues to look like she might pull away, Suki steps in closer, hand skimming up her arm to keep her attention on her. It works almost too well; Azula’s gaze has dipped down to her lips, expression dark like she’s seriously considering taking advantage of Suki’s insistence on following her, and kissing her.

Suki reminds herself that would be a mistake, and shifts her weight back just enough to discourage Azula from trying anything. She looks toward the house.

“Why did you come here, anyway?” she asks.

Azula hesitates, seeming to weigh her words before she says them. “I just needed to see it,” she says at last. She gives a tight shrug, turning her head to the house. “This is my home. Of all the things I never thought I’d lose, this was the main one. I lost my mom, then Zuko, my friends…I always knew I’d lose my father one way or another, you don’t do what he did and expect to die peacefully in your sleep at a ripe old age. Somehow I at least thought I’d never lose my home. I never thought I’d lose my Clan, either, but…this is just more…real.”

She takes a step back from Suki, jamming her hands in her pockets, a distinctly self-protective move Suki would never expect to see from her.

“More importantly,” Azula says, voice reclaiming its more careless tone, “Zuko’s latest bout of ‘intelligence’ suggested that the fire was started in an underground chamber of the estate. My father does have an underground chamber he’s dubbed the Dragonbone Catacombs.”

“Wow. That’s quite a name.”

“He always had a flare for the dramatic. But in any case, it’s where he kept his more valuable resources, it's where he conducted his more exclusive meetings, and plotted out his more high risk business ventures. It’s also a treasure trove of information—codes, maps, plans, contacts…and only a select few people even know of its existence, my father’s right hand man being the obvious.” She arches an eyebrow in a shrug. “Zuko keeps finding more and more proof that it was Zhao, and I keep coming up with excuses, but he’s right. I know he’s right. I just wanted to see it for myself.”

“If that’s where the fire was started, there isn’t going to be much to see,” Suki says gently.

“I know.” Azula looks down. “This was a stupid idea, I don’t know what I was thinking, coming here. It doesn’t change anything.” She toes at the dirt in an almost childlike display of stubbornness. “I still don't think Zhao was behind the Boiling Rock attack, I can't imagine what he'd think he'd have to gain by fucking up an Element X delivery, but...it's time to face facts. Zhao took the shot at me." She huffs. "God, Zuko’s going to be insufferable when I admit that he’s right about that.”

Suki laughs. “Honestly, I think he’s enjoying spending time going over theories with you—even if you do disagree and knock him down every time.”

Azula cocks her head with an incredulous smile. “What on earth makes you think he _enjoys_ that?” she asks.

“Well, because he missed you.”

Azula blinks, looking almost dumbfounded.

“Also, I think he’s just happy to be able to spend time with you in a…non-violent capacity. He told me when he first gave me this assignment that you’ve tried to electrocute him before. I think he said three times? Once with a toaster and a fork somehow…?”

Azula shrugs carelessly. “He was being annoying, I regret nothing,” she says.

Suki gives her a look, and Azula’s mouth twitches into a teasing smile that’s somehow completely endearing.

“Speaking of Zuko...I suppose it’s best we return to his place,” Azula says a little awkwardly. She looks at the skeletal house one more time, chin lifted in what Suki can't help but think is performative airiness. “I guess it would be a shame if I were to die buried in the rubble of a burned down estate. I’d like to think my death will be a little classier than that. Or at least more dramatic and headline worthy.”

“Well you’re not dying any time soon. Definitely not on my watch,” Suki tells her. “But yeah, we should probably get back to Zuko’s before the boys wake up and start panicking.”

They return to the car, and start the winding journey back through Republic City’s streets. They’re both silent for a long time, and Suki leans her head against the window, watching the colored lights go by, wondering why, of all things, she wants to find a way to _comfort_ Azula right now.

As they cross the bridge toward midtown, Azula finally speaks.

“So…you becoming a firefighter,” she says hesitantly. Her fingers tap against the steering wheel. “Was that because of what I did to your school?”

Suki looks over at her. She has her eyes glued to the road, posture stiff and agitated. Like she’s bracing herself for something.

“Partially,” Suki answers after a long moment. She looks back to the road, pointing a ways ahead. “Make a left up there.”

Azula glances at her. “Why? That’ll take us away from Zuko’s.”

“I know that. That’s where my apartment is. I want to show you something.”

Azula still seems guarded, like she’s waiting for some horrible thing to be sprung on her, but she takes a bracing breath, and obediently turns left.


	12. Chapter 12

Things Azula does not like:

-Tiny apartments the size of a shoebox

-Cheap beer

-Long conversations about “feelings”

Things Azula is currently doing:

-Sitting in a tiny apartment the size of a shoebox

-Drinking cheap beer

-Having a long conversation that comes awfully close to being about “feelings”

Things Azula is confused about:

-The fact that she is sort of enjoying these things she doesn’t like

Maybe _enjoy_ isn’t the right word for it. The things Suki’s saying to her aren’t exactly easy to hear. In fact, most of what she says makes Azula thoroughly ill at ease. But there’s something…right…about this.

Suki keeps her distance as they settle in at her apartment. She tells Azula to make herself at home on the couch, opens the very atrocious beer, and hands her a bottle before going about rummaging through some of her things.

When she resurfaces, she’s carrying a folded-up slip of paper, and a red and gold star-shaped medal the size of her palm. She hands both to Azula before making her way across the kitchen—which, to be fair, is only about five steps away—and perching herself on the practically non-existent counter.

“Medal of Valor,” Azula reads, running her thumb across the shiny surface. She looks up at Suki with an arched brow. “Aren’t these given to people who’ve died during a rescue? Either I’m in for a very nasty shock when you tell me you’re actually dead, or you’ve stolen this.”

Suki rolls her eyes. “It was my dad’s.”

“Oh.” Well that was tactless. “I’m—“

“It’s okay,” Suki says. “He died when I was two, I have pretty much zero memory of him. I actually didn’t even know about that until I turned 18 and got ahold of some of the things he left for me.”

Looking around at Suki’s apartment, Azula is going to go out on a limb and guess that what he left her was a handful of pennies and maybe some duct tape.

No judgement, Azula is simply stating facts.

“I did some research on him when I got this,” Suki continues. “Turns out he was putting out a fire started by your Clan when he died.”

Azula holds herself still.

“To top it all off, it wasn’t even innocent civilians he was saving. It later came out that it was a family of Water Clan members,” Suki says. “They weren’t even good people he lost his life for.”

Azula keeps her eyes on the medal, tracing its shape, taking special care to focus on the feeling of the edges digging into her thumb so she doesn’t have to deal with the slow twist of some nameless emotion churning deep in her gut at Suki’s words. The only feeling that exists is the feeling of those metal ridges against her fingers, she tells herself.

“My mom died not long after,” Suki tells her. “Car crash. I went through a few foster homes. Got in trouble at school, started fights with people bigger and older than me. Really only had Sokka at the time. Eventually I got sent to Ba Sing Se Military Academy to straighten me out. I don’t know that it really straightened me out at all, but it was the first time I ever felt like I had a more permanent home. I had focus. I found a sense of purpose and leadership. That school, those girls, they were my family.”

And Azula took them from her. The unsaid words hang heavy between them.

Azula finally dares to look up, finding Suki’s expression on her uncommonly difficult to read. Suki is usually an open book, it’s one of the things Azula is fondest of. Now it’s like trying to read through stone.

“You asked me before I handed over the drive at Ba Sing Se if I had a home outside the school,” Suki says. “I think you were just acting tough and trying to come off as unfeeling, acting like you could manipulate the world if you wanted. I don’t think you knew that I really didn’t have a home outside school.”

“I didn’t,” Azula says, hearing her own voice come out hoarse, barely audible. “How would I.”

“Good,” Suki says, expression still closed off. “And the dorms? You threatened to burn them down in addition to Long Feng’s chambers. Was that real, or was that another act?”

“I wouldn’t have,” Azula says, voice still hoarse. Suki’s entire countenance, still as it is, seems to demand honesty, and Azula feels trapped by it. “I know what I said, I know I threatened to, but I wouldn’t have. Even Long Feng’s chambers—I planned it because it was the night of the graduation, I knew there wouldn’t be anyone in there. I chose that night for a reason.”

Suki nods, gaze falling to her knees. “You never do anything without a reason,” she says quietly. She straightens back, eyes returning to Azula. “That’s a list of names, there,” she says, pointing at the folded slip of paper in Azula’s hand.

Setting the medal aside, Azula unfolds the paper gingerly, eyes tracking across a couple dozen names.

“They’re the names of the people who got caught in the crossfire of all that gang warfare, when the Fire Clan started moving in on Earth Clan territory after the school fell and the precinct fell under your father’s control,” Suki tells her. “If I hadn’t given you that drive, all those people would still be alive. The school would still be standing. I would’ve spent the entirety of my school years with a home.”

She takes a sip of her beer and shrugs. “On the other hand, if I hadn’t handed over the drive, Long Feng’s human trafficking ring would still be up and running,” she says. “So I don’t know. Because of me, wars over territory were fought, and innocent people died. But also, it freed and stopped skin trade through Republic City—at least for a while. I’m not that naive that I’d think it was ended once and for all. Still though. Whether people died or were kept safe because of that drive, it became clear to me that the only way to change things is to run headlong into them. I could’ve run away that night at the school. I could’ve gotten the girls and left, and let you go.”

“But you didn’t,” Azula says. She keeps looking for something in Suki, some hint of what she’s feeling, and keeps coming up empty. “Did you even know what you were going to do once you caught up to me?”

Suki shakes her head. “I just had to,” she murmurs. She tightens her shoulders. “Anyway, you weren’t wrong when you said it at the safe house—you did kind of help remove the scales from my eyes. Made it clear I had to think beyond what I was told, needed to see the bigger picture, and needed to change it. When I found my dad’s Medal of Valor, it seemed like a sign, like becoming a firefighter like him was the right thing to do. It was unbelievably hard work. And it was terrifying. But anytime I doubted, I saw your face, and I remembered what you did, and I kept going. You burned in me. For the longest time.”

_You burned in me._

Azula wonders what Suki would do if she knew that was exactly the way Azula had spent countless nights thinking about her when she was younger.

“It didn’t really occur to me until tonight, seeing you looking as helpless as you did at your burned down home, that maybe you really didn’t understand what you’d done at Ba Sing Se,” Suki continues. “I was too young at the time to understand everything I saw on that drive, and I’m wondering if maybe you didn’t understand it all either. You were 15 years old. You were a kid, and you were trying to impress your father.”

“I wasn’t trying to impress him,” Azula says.

Suki peels at the label on her beer for a moment before looking back at her. “Then why’d you do it?” she asks. “Why did you try to burn down a school, and then use what you accidentally discovered there to move your father’s people into place?”

“Because I wanted him to know I’d never leave him,” Azula tells her, and suddenly that tangle of emotion is no longer just in her gut, it’s creeping up to her throat. She exhales slowly, working it back down so her voice can slip through again. “Everyone else left him. His brother left him, his wife, his son…but not me. I wanted to show him…I wanted him to know I was different from them, I wouldn’t abandon him like they did, not ever. It was just me, and him—against the entire world if it had to be. We were the same, he had to know he wasn’t alone.”

“So you burned down a school to prove it.”

Azula feels herself give a lopsided smile. “Well we are the _Fire_ Clan, Suki, it’s right there in the name.”

Suki’s expression softens just the slightest bit, allowing the small, in poor taste attempt at humor.

“Arson’s a fun little part of our initiation rituals,” Azula tells her. “In theory, I wasn’t supposed to start mine until I was 16, but Ozai kept losing his family, and I just had to prove to him I would never leave his side, I would never betray him. I wanted him to see that he was right to put his faith in me, that I’d serve him loyally, that I was brave.”

Suki regards her carefully. “Did you feel brave?” she asks. Her voice is low, but still makes a swath of goosebumps erupt across Azula’s skin. “Threatening me when I couldn’t fight back? Burning an empty building just to prove you could? Did that really make you feel brave?”

“I thought…” Azula swallows, unsettled. “I thought I did. But then you came barreling after me…into the fire—even _I_ wouldn’t run _toward_ the fire, I set it and ran from it, that’s what you’re supposed to do with fire. Shoot and run. But you threw all that aside and you came tearing in after me, eyes blazing. I wish you could’ve seen yourself then. You were the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.”

She wishes she was still holding the Medal of Valor, needing something sharp to dig her fingers into.

“So, you burned in me, too,” she goes on, forging ahead almost against her own will. “Ozai taught me to be unflinching, but you taught me to be fearless. Anytime things got too hot, anytime something scared me…I saw your face, I remembered what you did, and I kept going.” She laughs, and before she can stop herself, she adds, “I think there was actually a time I imagined I was in love with you, before I learned that love isn’t real—or that it’s just fear warmed up.”

When Suki doesn’t laugh with her, Azula slips on an easy half-smile. “Don’t worry, angel, I don’t still think I’m in love with you, no need to feel uncomfortable,” she assures her. “We all think stupid things when we’re young. I was 15. I know better now.”

Suki gazes at her for a long time, face back to its unreadable mask, such a foreign look on her. At last, she sets her beer aside and slides off the counter. Azula is too surprised to move when Suki reaches her and straddles her, settling slowly onto her lap, hands resting on her shoulders.

Azula hates the way her entire body reacts to Suki’s nearness, the soft weight of her, the clamp of her legs around her, the pressure of her chest not quite touching, the heat of her, the scent of her, all of it so overwhelming. Unthinkingly, she places her hands on Suki’s thighs, squeezing and running up firm muscle encased in silky smooth skin, hot to the touch.

Suki’s breath comes out sharp, but she grabs Azula’s right hand before it can go too far and guides it up under her shirt to rest on the raised burn mark on her side. Azula’s gaze flies to hers in surprise, finding herself locked with eyes dark as the sea. Touching that mark has always been the thing that grinds them to a halt, but Suki has brought her here intentionally, holding her hand to the mark like she’s trying to burn it back into her palm.

“Do you really?” Suki asks, breath uneven.

Azula tilts her head. “What do you mean?” she asks, hating the way her body rises ever so slightly as Suki shifts her weight against her. For the first time in years, Azula feels out of her depth, pulse and breath drawn from her by someone else. She can’t remember the last time someone took hold of her body’s natural reactions and controlled them so easily. The fingers of her left hand dig into Suki’s thigh, the thumb of her right hand strokes over the burn mark. She’s at least satisfied by Suki’s grip on her wrist tightening needily at her touch, breath hitching.

“I mean, do you really know better now?” Suki says. “You say it all the time, about so many things. So self-assured. You know better. So I’m asking, do you really know better, or do you just keep telling yourself that so you don’t have to admit how far you’ve really fallen?”

Azula’s hands still and she feels the muscle in her jaw clench. She keeps her gaze cold and steady as Suki lets go of her wrist and skims her hand up her arm, her shoulder, finally cradling Azula’s chin.

“You’re not him,” Suki says quietly. “It’s not you and him against the world, it’s not you taking his place, or trying to prove yourself to him, it’s not you taking on his title. You don’t have those things anymore, and I think if you’re honest with yourself, you know you never did. You didn’t know better, not about him, not about the business, not about me, not about anything. So what exactly is it that you think you know so much better than the rest of us? That you can sit there and say you know better, like the world belongs to you, when really, you have nothing?”

Azula feels like she’s been struck, the softness of Suki’s tone making the words themselves all the more cutting. Anger lashes against the inside of her, cold at the base of her skull but hot everywhere else.

At the same time, she almost feels relief. She doesn’t know why she feels relief, why being told she’s wrong and she has nothing should make her feel like she can let out her breath for the first time in years. She looks up at Suki and wants to hate her for everything she just said, but instead just feels grateful for her presence, the pressure of her body holding her down, the way she’s taken over her, just a little, just for now.

She doesn’t have an answer, and it seems almost cruel when Suki dips down at her silence, lips barely brushing against hers before she presses in fully, kissing her slow and deep, like she means it. When she pulls back, it’s with a soft bite to her lip that sends arousal spreading like wildfire through Azula’s body, almost enough to obliterate every thought in her head.

Which isn’t okay. Azula may have very little, but she’ll be damned if she’s willing to let go of control completely. She reaches up, tangling her fingers in Suki’s hair and tugging her back down to her mouth, resuming their kiss at a harsher pace, satisfaction roaring to life in her at the sound of Suki moaning against her lips, hands gripping into her shoulders, hips grinding down as she arches into her.

Azula breaks the kiss, going for her neck instead, mouthing down to the sweep of her shoulder, teeth grazing at her skin. Suki squirms above her, hips rocking against her and fingers burying in her hair, head dropping back as she utters breathless sounds of encouragement.

Azula’s hands slip back under Suki’s shirt, and Suki helps her take it off, letting it drop to the floor somewhere behind herself. Azula takes a moment to admire the sight of her, the full rise of her breasts now covered only by her bra, then delves back in, kissing and nipping at the softness of her newly bared flesh.

Suki’s arms are around her and she holds her close as she continues mouthing over her chest. It takes Azula a moment to realize that Suki is pressing soft kisses to her forehead, nuzzling and resting her head against Azula’s, and Azula has no idea what to do about this woman who managed to offend her so utterly _and_ make it sound genuine and almost caring at the same time.

They both jump at the sound of someone hammering loudly on the other side of the door, Azula's head jutting up painfully into Suki's chin.

“SUKI?”

For fuck’s fucking sake. Azula would recognize Sokka’s dulcet tones anywhere and she huffs in frustration as Suki pushes herself out of her arms and scrambles off her lap with a curse. She smooths herself down while Suki pulls her shirt back on, running her hand over her kiss-swollen lips as she makes her way to the door.

“Sokka!” she exclaims as she opens the door, like his unexpected arrival is a pleasant surprise rather than a completely unwelcome intrusion. “What are you doing here? It’s—“ She cranes her head back to look at the time on the microwave. “—Three in the morning.”

“Yeah, it is,” Sokka says, looking at her like she’s out of her mind. “Neighbor’s dog started barking and woke me up at stupid fucking o’clock, I looked out and saw Azula was missing and your room was wide open and empty. Gave me a fucking heart attack, I thought Azula abducted you!” He peeks over Suki’s shoulder. “Oh, hey, Azula.” This comes out mostly as an accusatory grunt.

Azula gives him a short jerk of her hand she’s going to claim is a wave hello, but is mostly her imagining slapping him across the face.

“I texted you and called you like a million times before I realized you left your phone in your room,” Sokka continues furiously. He looks like a concerned mother hen, which is not a parallel Azula draws often. “I’ve got Zuko on a wild goose chase looking for both of you, and I came here just on the off chance—what the hell are you doing out here in the middle of the night?”

“We were just…” Suki begins, looking back over her shoulder at Azula. She’s doing a poor job hiding it, arms crossed over her chest with one hand coming up to her mouth as if in thought, awkwardly trying to hide any evidence of the fact that she’s been making out with Azula for the past several minutes.

“Needed a break from the house,” Azula tells Sokka smoothly. “Neither of us could sleep. Suki thought it might be a good idea to take a drive around to clear our heads, and we ended up back here. It’s good to know that you and my brother aren’t alarmists or anything.”

“Hey, that’s enough snark out of you,” Sokka grumps. “You’re not supposed to leave Zuko’s.” He jerks his thumb over his shoulder. “You can both follow me home.”

“Sokka, there’s really no need for me to stay at Zuko’s anymore,” Suki says. “My shoulder’s fine. And Azula can…well, she can…”

“She can stay at Zuko’s where we can keep an eye on her, like we agreed,” Sokka says firmly. “And you should keep staying with us too. We’re safer together.”

“We were doing just fine without you,” Azula can’t help but grumble.

Sokka scowls and points sternly back at the hall. “That’s enough lip from you, missy, get in the car, and follow me home,” he instructs.

Azula considers disobeying him, but finds herself getting to her feet with a roll of her eyes anyway. She slips her shoes on at the door and Suki steps back, leaning against the doorjamb and looking at her with wide, almost apologetic eyes.

“Alright, march it,” Sokka tells her, continuing to point.

Azula ignores him, smirking at Suki instead. “Thanks for the chat,” she says. “And the drink.” She looks back at the shoebox apartment. “You have a lovely home.”

Suki is biting her lip, and Azula turns toward the hall so she doesn’t do something stupid like kissing her again. She doesn’t know why—Suki’s words to her before were almost violent in their quiet honesty, and to follow them up with a kiss, it just seems…

Azula doesn’t know what it seems. Everything about Suki is confusing, and abrasive, and addictive, and it occurs to her suddenly that Suki has very much burrowed her way under her skin, something Azula feels deeply unsettled by.

As she makes her way into the cooler air of the hall, she hears Sokka attempt one more time to convince Suki she should come back with them. Suki declines, which is disappointing, and even more confusing.

Still, she can’t help a small huff of a laugh as she hears Sokka leaving Suki with one last remark:

“Your shirt’s on backwards, weirdo,” he says.

Suki stammers out something, and quickly shuts the door.


	13. Chapter 13

Suki decides that in the interest of preserving her sanity, she needs to take a day away from Azula.

Would she rather go back to Zuko’s, tangle with Azula and let her take her apart? Yes. Yes, she very much would. It was somehow both gratifying and disturbing to have it out with her the night before, to finally strip away just a few layers of that cold veneer, open her up…even hurt her.

That’s the fucked up part. Suki hadn’t followed her to the Sozin estate to hurt her, hadn’t brought her to her apartment to hurt her, hadn’t said all those things to hurt her. But it felt so good to finally see that…well, that she _could_ be hurt. That she could understand. It shouldn’t have felt good to see someone’s world falling apart, that’s not something Suki wants, not ever, but if Azula’s world falling apart means she has to find a new world, a different kind of world…

But she’d closed herself off. She’d opened for just a moment, and then did what she always does, all her talk about knowing better, being better, putting herself up on some untouchable level of detachment, and for the first time, it hadn’t just annoyed Suki, it had made her genuinely angry. She hadn’t planned on striding over, hadn’t planned on straddling her, _definitely_ hadn’t planned the rest of it…but she’d been so angry to see those walls coming back up, she’d had to tear them down by any means necessary. Tell her she’s wrong, tell her she has nothing, then kiss her, do anything to tear her apart.

And that’s not Suki. Suki has never been the type to hurt someone and say it’s a good thing. But in the moment, it was all she _could_ do.

It really wasn’t until Azula left with Sokka—that son of a bitch, she loves him, but for fuck’s sake, Sokka—but it wasn’t until Azula left that Suki realized that the type of anger she felt wasn’t the same anger she’d felt toward Azula in the beginning, when they were first reunited after all those years. In fact, in the beginning, she isn’t sure what she felt even _was_ anger, it was more of a simmering loathing, being thrown back into the path of the person she blamed for some of her darkest memories. That hatred was a constant, ever-burning truth.

Not constant at all anymore. Not _there_ at all. Hatred had been replaced by something else, something that easily turned into anger, and last night, that anger had been so alive in her, it had taken every ounce of willpower she had to keep it hidden.

The problem is that Suki doesn’t feel that sort of anger when it comes to someone she hates. That kind of anger is the kind that gets twisted up in a myriad of other feelings, and when it’s all boiled down, the fact that she has feelings at all with regard to Azula, some of them overwhelmingly bad, some of them shockingly good, is almost too confounding to deal with.

So what did she do about them? Straddled Azula and kissed her, apparently. And after tearing those walls back down, she would have let Azula tear her apart. Almost did.

Fucking Sokka.

…Or maybe good Sokka?

She doesn’t know. Really, all she _does_ know is that she has very strong feelings toward Azula, each one twisted up in others so that it’s impossible for her to distinguish what those feelings actually are. Just that they’re feelings. Of some description.

That said, she needs a day away from her.

She drops by headquarters to pick up some of what she’s been working on with regards to the Boiling Rock attack, thinking that might give her a renewed sense of focus. And alright, technically it’s Azula- _related,_ but it’s not _that_ type of Azula-related.

She brings her work to Katara’s PT room on the third floor, one of the few places in the building with windows that let in a significant amount of light. Katara herself has been taking night shifts lately, so her workspace this afternoon is completely uninhabited at the moment, and Suki is free to make herself comfortable against the largest of the wall length windows, spreading out her copies of the work the four of them have been doing at Zuko’s.

In theory, this is the kind of thing any normal security agency would work in conjunction with the police over, but both Zuko and Aang are very firm in their distrust of the RCPD, using their contacts there very sparingly, and piecing together evidence and cases on their own to present at a time that will keep things as clean as possible.

Suki has always preferred more the action side of things to the quasi-detective work, but this case is far more grand scale than anything she’s ever worked on, and she needs to know the ins and outs. Not to mention, it’s complex enough that it takes her mind more completely off of…well, certain raven-haired, amber-eyed arsonists who will remain nameless.

She skims through the pages in front of her, trying to organize her thoughts. So, they’re officially 99.9% sure Zhao took the shot at Azula, that much is pretty well tied together. But as far as the attack on the Boiling Rock, who was behind it, and the reason, not to mention Zhao’s decision to set fire to what Azula claimed to be something of an inner sanctum of the Sozin estate after shooting at her…that’s still just a series of question marks.

And whether or not there are still others out there who have their sights set on Azula as a means of asserting their power or position while the empire of organized crime in Republic City reconfigures itself remains a mystery. It’s hard to say whether Zhao himself knows if Azula is even still alive, for that matter. He took a shot into the middle of a burning building, surrounded by thick smoke and fleeing bodies.

Suki furrows her brow in thought. Azula claimed that after Suki was shot, one of her Clan’s assassins shot her attacker dead. It was her main argument as to why Zhao couldn’t possibly be the shooter—the Yu Yan Archers never missed, she claimed. But she’s given in now to the idea that Zhao did in fact take that shot. So either Zhao grabbed a human shield when the Yu Yan Archer retaliated, or Azula simply didn’t see what really happened—which she wouldn’t have, not if her attention was on Suki. Maybe that’s what she figured out on her own and just refused to entertain it for as long as she could. Keeping herself safe in denial.

Until last night. Seeing the remains of her home. The knowledge that the fire started in…what was that ridiculous name…the Dragonbone Catacombs. A place only Zhao would know to go to. She accepted it then, and for a moment, Suki had been afraid it might break her.

No, refocus. Stop thinking about Azula. Stop thinking about Azula and feelings. Just focus on the cold hard facts, the important questions.

Suki stares at the pages in front of her blankly, waiting for everything to magically fall into place.

After an hour of trying to force her brain to work, she shoves her notes back into their straining folder with a frustrated huff. She’s going in circles here. This part of things just isn’t her strong suit.

She stows the file away in the locked drawer of her desk and decides to take a walk to the pier instead, get a look at the Boiling Rock itself—or what’s left of it, anyway.

There isn’t much. It’s mostly blocked off with crime scene tape, but, as Azula pointed out the night before, it can very easily be disregarded and stepped right over. Jamming her hands in the pockets of her jacket, she makes her way slowly around the perimeter. It’s been a hot summer, but down by the docks, there’s a stiff breeze that slithers under her clothes. She shudders as that breeze swirls in the ashes of the building. Ashes of what she hopes is _only_ building. When all was said and done, 16 bodies were found in the wreckage. Most were dragged out before being burnt to a cinder, but really…some bit of them probably remains mixed in with all that ash.

The thought is eerie enough that she circles around to where she can be upwind and not have any errant ash billowing around her.

16 bodies found and identified. All accounts given by survivors were muddied and confusing, none giving any clear indication or clue as to who began the attack.

Suki drifts over to the front door—or what was the front door. She can more or less picture where she was when the first shots rang out. Earsplitting.

She watches as the ash shifts against the wind. There are still a couple loose bullet shells half-buried in there. Most of them would have been collected, she’s surprised to see them. She remembers what Azula says about upper class Clan bullets being marked.

Glancing over her shoulder, she crouches and picks up one of the shells, turning it over in her hand. She doesn’t see anything that stands out to her—then again, it’s hard to say if it’s only the bullets themselves that are marked, and even if that’s the case, these may not have belonged to the attackers. They could have belonged to the Yu Yan Archers, or anyone else who happened to be packing that night, which could mean lower members of the Fire Clan, or grunts from others who got in on a dare, or hell, even private citizens.

She tosses the shell back in the ash. The shots had rung out one by one at first. Single-shot pistols. It wasn’t until later, when the fray swelled to a roar that someone arrived on the scene with what has since come to light across the Republic City news outlets as a pair of submachine guns. It started small scale and direct. The attackers had a sole target—most likely Azula and her posse. The submachine guns suggest a wider, more general target. It’s more careless, more chaotic.

Maybe it wasn’t just one faction of attackers, but two.

Suki jumps at a metallic scrape behind her, followed by the patter of rock tumbling against concrete. She wheels, craning her neck to see where it came from. The surrounding area looks empty, all the more ghostlike when she’s crouched in the ashes of the wreckage. A chill creeps up her spine, the tiny hairs on the back of her neck standing on end.

“Hello?” she asks the emptiness. Nothing answers.

She rises slowly to her feet, and there—just across the beaten parking lot, she sees a dark-clad figure move just out of the shadows of the surrounding buildings. Whoever it is seems to realize she’s spotted him, and takes off at a run, shoes pounding against the pavement.

Suki takes off after him, streaking across the parking lot and down twisting side streets. He’s far too fast for her, vanishing seemingly into thin air by the time she finally reaches the last corner he rounded. There’s no sign of him, and unless an overturned trashcan, some rotting cabbages, and a single toothpick are a clue of anything, there’s no telling who he was.

Jamming her hands back in her pockets, she returns to the shadowed corner of the buildingwhere she had first noticed him from afar. She runs her hand along the wall, pausing at a loose brick. She digs her fingers in, tugging it free.

Disappointment settles in her, weaving around her already keyed-up nerves. Somehow, she was hoping the loose brick would open to something that would solve all their mysteries in one go.

But it’s just a loose brick. It opens to nothing. She even dares herself to reach her hand inside, bracing herself in fear of sharp debris or angry rodents, but comes out empty. Just dust and grime.

Left with nothing to show for her day of non-Azula work, she returns home discouraged, and crashes on her couch, trying and failing to turn her brain off.

*

Suki makes a deal with herself to stay away from Zuko’s for three full days.

She lasts two and a half.

It’s Sokka’s fault, really. He texts her Tuesday afternoon to tell her that both he and Zuko are going to be out of the house chasing after some new leads. There’s been a marked escalation in gang warfare in the past several days, bold, public moves that seem out of character for the Four Families. Just the night before, a pipe bomb somehow found its way into what Azula informed them was an Air Clan meeting place. Some days before that, a fight broke out in midday in a crowd outside a shopping center. And that’s to say nothing of the sudden rising prices in Element X, and more small-scale squabbles over its possession—information Zuko gleaned from one of his shadier contacts at the docks. He refuses to say who, which makes Suki think it has to be Jet. He’s always reluctant to mention Jet to Sokka.

Long story short, the boys are on a mission, and Azula needs a babysitter so she doesn’t set the house on fire.

What is Suki supposed to do, say _no?_ Azula is technically still her charge, even if Zuko has pretty much taken over the care and feeding of his little sister. Much to his little sister’s grouchiness.

So Suki says yes, because no definitely isn’t an option, and drives over to Zuko’s that afternoon. If she’s spent a little more time than usual choosing a slightly more revealing outfit, styling her hair, trying to perfect her look in the mirror, and if she’s applied just the very slightest, barely-noticeable amount of perfume, then that’s simply a coincidence.

The boys are on their way out as Suki gets out of the car, and Suki overhears Sokka snapping something at Azula before he slams the door shut with a huff.

“Your sister’s a jerk,” he complains to Zuko.

“Actually, I’m kinda with Azula on this one, babe,” Zuko says with a grin. He waves at her from across the driveway. “Hi, Suki.”

“Suki!” Sokka huffs, motioning her over. “I need your honest opinion, this may be the most important question I’ve had to ask you in years. Do I sound like a parrot when I sing?”

Suki cocks her head in surprise. “I’m sorry?”

“We were doing some Xbox karaoke last night, and Azula said I sounded like a parrot,” Sokka tells her, scowling.

Suki laughs, not sure which is funnier, Sokka’s face, or the fact that somehow Azula and the boys spent last night singing pop tunes together.

No it’s the latter one. The latter one is definitely funnier.

“Why are you laughing?” Sokka demands. “When we were dating you always said you _liked_ my singing!”

“Oh…well…I did,” Suki says. “But it was mostly because you…sounded like a parrot. And it was hilarious.”

Sokka’s face gets very sour.

“And it was _cute!”_ Suki adds, laughing. “But honestly, Sokka, it was awful.”

“Awful and cute,” Zuko agrees, pulling Sokka in and kissing his cheek. He’s in an oddly good mood given the state of things.

“It’s not like _Azula_ would’ve been any better,” Sokka grumbles.

“That’s probably true, but you did set the bar pretty low,” Zuko says.

“You know what, I do not appreciate—the level of—listen, I’ll have you know my mom said—“

“Sokka, starting any argument with ‘my mom said’ is…what’s the word I’m looking for…”

“Pathetic?” Suki fills in.

“Pathetic’s a good word.”

“Fuck both of you,” Sokka grouses, turning on his heel and making his way for Zuko’s car.

“You have,” Suki points out, and Sokka flips her off without looking at her.

“So, I’m…” Zuko starts awkwardly, turning to Suki and scratching the back of his neck. “We, uh…we’ve got a couple contacts to catch up on. And we’re gonna stop by headquarters for a bit.Get some work done there. And then, uh. Well.”

He looks humiliated and flustered, and for just a second, Suki forgets he’s her boss, an all around badass, admitted one-time crush, and former heir to the Fire Clan. The man before her seems more like a boy, awkward, embarrassed, and a little giddy.

“Sokka’s been hounding me to go on a…like a proper date with him,” he says finally, cheeks flushing. “He says it’s been ‘eons.’ Which is obviously impossible, but I know he’s…anyway. And. With Azula around, we haven’t exactly been able to…to do things…”

“You’re staying at Sokka’s tonight, huh,” Suki says, pursing her lips against a grin.

“Just for…” Zuko clears his throat and straightens his jacket. “I mean, we’re just gonna…just like a date. Like one of those. Like a date.”

“Zuko, you little minx,” Suki teases scandalously, wolf-whistling when Zuko gets redder. She laughs. “It’s okay, that’s something you’re allowed to do, you know. You don’t have to explain yourself to me.”

“Yeah but is it like…I mean, I don’t really know how to act with…like is it weird? That you and him…and now me and him…and that whole…like is it okay?”

She raises her eyebrows, trying very hard not to continue to laugh at him. “Are you asking me for my blessing to have sex with my ex-boyfriend even though the two of you have already been fucking for two years now?” she asks.

“No, I’m—not, I just…while you were staying with us, I just kept thinking, like is this awkward for them?”

It was awkward. But definitely not because of Zuko and Sokka.

“Zuko, you’re very sweet, but honestly, I’m fine.”

His eyes dart to the house. “And you’re really okay looking after Azula for the night? She actually hasn’t been all that bad lately, even had a couple moments of being social with us…”

“Yeah, Xbox karaoke night. I’d’ve paid to see that.”

“She didn’t actually sing with us,” Zuko admits. “She just perched on the back of the couch and made snide remarks every time one of us opened our mouths. But…at least she was with us.”

“It’s a start.”

“Yeah.” He gives a thin, uncomfortable smile. “For what it’s worth, she’ll probably be extremely well-behaved around you,” he says carefully.

“What makes you say that?”

“Well, I doubt she’d admit it, but I actually think she’s kind of been missing you the last couple days.”

Suki blinks.

“She's just seemed kind of broody since you left,” Zuko tells her. “I mean she’s been broody since she first got here a couple weeks ago, but it’s more so now. She perked up a little when I said you’d be coming by, though. And then she insulted Sokka. Which I think means she’s in a better mood.”

Suki…doesn’t know what to do with this information.

Zuko straightens his jacket again, seemingly more out of awkwardness than a need for straightening. “Anyway. If that all sounds okay…guess I’ll leave you to it?”

Suki nods, quickly plastering a smile on her face. “You kids have fun,” she says.

Zuko breathes out a laugh, making for the car. “Call if you need anything,” he tells her, glancing back with an earnest expression. “Seriously.”

“You got it, boss,” Suki assures him.

She waves as they peel out, takes a deep breath, and goes inside.

To her surprise, Azula is at the table, poring over newspaper clippings, and jotting down information in a notebook. Suki closes the door behind herself and leans back against it, watching her.

Azula glances up, and Suki wants to see that smirk, that more predatory glint in her eye, but she seems guarded instead. Almost like she’s considering whether Suki is a possible enemy. Suki shifts uncertainly, offering a careful smile. “Hey,” she says, not exactly sure how else to begin.

“Changing of the guard, I see,” Azula remarks. Finally she allows a small shadow of a smirk. “Think I’ve mentioned it before, but you’re infinitely better-looking than most people who’ve taken me captive.”

“I haven’t taken you captive,” Suki says, rolling her eyes.

“Mm,” Azula utters noncommittally, returning her attention to the papers in front of her.

When Suki doesn’t move away from the door, Azula looks back up at her, a curious slant to her lips. “Are you planning on coming over?” she prompts.

“You could always come to me,” Suki says.

Azula leans back in her chair, one eyebrow arching as she looks Suki over. “Now why would I want to do that?” she asks.

Suki flounders a little. “I…just thought…”

She trails off as Azula gets to her feet and makes her way over, strides smooth and easy.

“You thought what?” she asks as she reaches Suki. She looks her over, seeming to read _right_ through her. “You’d just come here all dolled up and we’d start up where we left off?” Her fingers play with the ends of Suki’s hair. “Or were you hoping to go back a ways so you can tell me I have nothing again?”

Suki swallows dryly, shaking her head. “I didn’t mean it like that,” she says.

“Yes you did,” Azula says, and now her fingers are skimming across her jaw. She doesn’t sound angry, more thoughtful than anything else. “You meant every word. And you sealed them all into me with a kiss.” She clicks her tongue. “Who knew you could be so cruel?”

Suki slides her hand up Azula’s shoulder, clutching at it, feeling a strange sort of urgency beginning to build in her. “I’m not…I wasn’t,” she breathes. “I wasn’t trying…”

“It’s okay,” Azula says, voice both sultry and cold. “You’re not wrong. I don’t have much anymore.” She skims her hand up Suki’s arm. “Though I can’t help but wonder, with you showing up looking like this, if maybe I have _you_ , just a little bit,” she adds with a smirk, the tease made somewhat darker by the seriousness of her observation.

Out of pride, Suki wants to say, _No, no you don’t have me, you’ll never have me._

Of course what comes out of her mouth is a hoarse, “You could.” She clears her throat, straightening as best she can. “I mean…you don’t. I’m not going to be one of your…but if you…”

Azula looks completely amused and Suki wants to find it infuriating like she used to. Instead, it’s absolutely melting her. “Don’t hurt yourself,” Azula teases.

“I don’t want you thinking I belong to you,” Suki finally manages to get out. She lifts her chin proudly, and Azula looks mildly taken aback. “I’m not them. I want you to understand that.”

Azula’s hand wanders just a little up under Suki’s shirt, thumb brushing across the burn mark, as if making a statement, but she doesn’t say anything about it.

“You don’t belong to me,” she agrees instead, although Suki gets the very distinct feeling she doesn’t believe a word of it. “You’re just here to finish what you started.”

Her mouth is inches from Suki’s, and her warm breath washes over her like the most tantalizing summer breeze. Suki would give anything to close those last few breaths between them and kiss her, but she’s paralyzed by the sound of Azula’s voice, the feeling of Azula’s fingers skimming the edge of her jaw, the hollows behind her ears. Azula angles her head so that their lips _almost_ meet in a teasing brush, before pulling back out of her reach where she can study her more fully, eyes roving over her.

“I could make this so easy for you, did you know that?” she says in her low purr, the one Suki can actually feel in her chest, the one that coaxes embers to life inside her. “I could take you and fuck you and turn your world upside-down for a night and be done with it. But the thing is, you’ve sort of gotten under my skin. You’re a fucking thorn in my side. And I want to fucking _ruin_ you.”

Arousal twists deep in Suki’s core, clenching and blooming in hot tendrils that race through every inch of her body. She swallows hard and tries to ignore the way her heart has begun ramming against the walls of her chest like it intends to break through and abandon her body entirely in favor of scampering willingly into Azula’s awaiting hands.

She shudders, breath stuttering through her in a jagged, needy exhale. “Ruin me how?” she finally manages to breathe out, trying to make it sound like a challenge, but failing spectacularly.

“That’s a very good question,” Azula tells her, and now one hand is trailing down Suki’s neck, drifting over her breasts, and curving down over her hip. “How do I want to ruin you? Well, let’s see.” One leg slides ever so smoothly between Suki’s thighs, giving her something to push into as she palms her ass. “I want to reduce you to your most helpless, your most desperate…”

Suki feels herself nodding, breath becoming shallow.

“I want to be your only relief,” Azula continues to muse, “the only thing you know how to grasp for when you’re drowning in so much pleasure it’s agonizing. I want to make you come, hard, over, and over, and when you can’t take it anymore, I want to make you come again anyway. And when you beg me to stop, I want to make you comejust once more. I want to destroy every little piece of pride you have in you, and I want you to enjoy every fucking second of it.”

Suki stares at her, speechless, cheeks on fire. She can barely remember what words _are_ , let alone find the right ones to respond to such a brazen claim. Azula’s hands are running over her with a possessiveness that has Suki barely grasping at remaining upright. She’s never been so grateful to have a wall at her back, lips parted helplessly, hitching in breath as best she can without forming a single word.

Azula gives her the smallest of smiles. “Are you nice and wet for me, pretty girl?” she murmurs, dragging her lips across Suki’s jaw, tongue flicking out to trace the shell of her ear before taking her earlobe gently between her teeth. “Hmm?”

The sound and feeling of that hum against her skin finally forces out the choked-off moan Suki has been trying to keep silent for the last several minutes. Or…the last several days. Weeks.

“Yes,” she hears herself whimper.

Azula hums again, and releases the fabric over her hip, easing her hand back to trail teasing fingers feather-light between Suki’s legs. She leans back just enough to be able to look at Suki fully, eyes fixated on her lips.

“Are you going to show me?” she asks, voice barely above a whisper.

Suki mindlessly grasps at Azula’s wrist, slipping her hand beneath the waistband of her pants and guiding it between her legs where she needs her most.

Azula breathes out a surprised-sounding laugh, and with her bare hand slipping against her, Suki is suddenly painfully aware of just how wet she really is.

“Oh, sweetheart,” Azula laughs, the sound warm and deep, and almost enough to make Suki feel something _else_ —before Azula draws her back into the feeling _she’s_ trying to create, stroking slickly between her legs. “You kind of have it bad for me, don’t you.”

Suki almost has the wherewithal to scoff at that, but then Azula eases her hand back just the slightest bit, the heel of her palm just barely brushing against her clit, and Suki’s hips automatically jerk forward, chasing her touch with almost pitiful desperation. Azula rewards that desperation by pressing forward against her again, this time backing the pressure up with her own thigh. She leans in as she rocks against her, and kisses Suki’s neck far too softly. Suki sees stars.

She moans as Azula slowly withdraws her hand from between her legs, bringing her fingers up to paint Suki’s lips with her own wetness.

“Such a pretty girl,” Azula whispers, cradling her cheek so she can brush the pad of her thumb against the slick coating of Suki’s lips. Suki’s tongue darts out to lick at Azula’s thumb—desperate to have some part of her in her mouth, some kind of contact, any kind of contact. She can feel her own arousal on Azula’s fingers wrapped around her chin and doesn’t think she’s ever been this turned on in her entire life.

She moans gratefully as Azula finally releases her chin and glides her middle and index fingers between her lips. Suki curls her tongue around them, sucking wantonly as Azula eases them slowly in and out. She gazes up at Azula in a haze of libido-induced adoration as she fucks her mouth with her fingers, struck by the way Azula is watching her as if mesmerized, lips parted and breath just the slightest bit labored.

“Fucking beautiful,” Azula murmurs, drawing her fingers out a final time and dragging them down Suki’s neck. “You look so gorgeous with those pretty lips wrapped around my fingers.”

Suki can’t really take it anymore—she surges forward and kisses her hard, artless and desperate, pleasure spiraling through her as Azula kisses her back and pushes her against the door so her back slams against the wood panelling with a satisfying thump. Suki’s kisses become messier as Azula’s hand returns to its place between her legs, and finally she has to give up the effort, head dropping to Azula’s shoulder with a groan. She curls her fingers in Azula’s hair and nips at her neck, trying to signal that she needs more.

Azula does more or less the opposite of what Suki wants when she removes her hand again, but before Suki can protest, she realizes she’s being pulled along to the guest bedroom.

Thank god.

Her onslaught of conflicting feelings regarding Azula is too convoluted to deal with, but this…this, Suki can do. This, she can understand. This, she can lose herself in completely. Suki practically flies with her, she’s fairly certain her feet never touch the ground.

New waves of pleasure ripple through her as Azula makes quick work of her shirt and bra and pushes her down on the mattress. The breath is knocked from her on impact and it just adds to her excitement.

Azula is shedding herself of her shirt as well, and Suki spreads her legs so she can slide between them, hooking one over Azula’s hip, reaching for her and kissing her deeply. Azula braces her hand against the mattress, angling so she can grind down, urging Suki’s hips up to meet her movements. Suki moans, following her as best she can, panting hard as Azula’s other hand reaches between them and begins kneading at her breast, gently pinching the nipple to stiff attention.

Just before she can get too lost in the sensation, Azula pulls away, leaning back on her heels so she can drift her gaze down the entire length of Suki’s bared torso. Suki gazes up at her, heat rising high in her cheeks at Azula’s look of absolute hunger as her eyes rove over her body.

When the heat from that gaze gets to be too much, Suki lifts her hips insistently, and Azula actually laughs, broken out of her admiration, and she gives in, helping Suki get out of her pants, dragging her underwear down along with them. Suki doesn’t even want to know how ruined they are, might not survive the humiliation.

All thoughts are stolen from her as Azula, having dispatched of every piece of clothing barring her from Suki’s body, aligns herself between her legs, seeming to drink in the sight of her. She runs her hand down Suki’s abdomen, then curves downward to grasp at the back of her thigh, urging her leg up until her ankle is level with Azula’s shoulder so she can kiss her from ankle to thigh, fingers drifting behind her knee. Suki is helpless to do anything but shift her hips upward in search of any contact she can manage, anything at all.

Azula finally eases her leg back to its place at her hip and leans back over her, having satisfied the need to simply _look_ at her and tease her, now needing as much skin-to-skin contact as possible. Suki delights at the wonderful heat above her, pressing up into it, letting it sear into her, rubbing tender flesh against the roughness of Azula's jeans.

She wants those jeans off, tries to reach for them, only to have her hands swatted away. Maybe if she had more control over herself, she'd put up more of a fight, but she makes her annoyance known only with a frustrated huff, hands coming up to dig into Azula's back instead as Azula begins kissing her neck.

Something about this isn’t quite enough, she thinks as she tries to pull Azula in closer. It almost feels like Azula is keeping herself in check in some way, and it doesn’t occur to her why until her hand grazes against the burn scar on her side.

Right. The no-pain clause. Azula is holding herself back.

“You can hurt me if you want,” Suki whispers.

Azula stops abruptly and Suki’s heart pounds against her chest. Azula pulls back just enough to lock gazes with her, eyes heavy and dark, pupils lined with the thinest rim of gold.

“I mean, not _hurt_ me hurt me,” Suki clarifies. “But if you wanted…it’s okay if you want to be rougher with me.” She hooks her leg higher around Azula’s side, tugging her in closer with a teasing jerk of her hips, and Azula almost looks startled by the playful gesture, a small sound of surprise falling from her lips. “I promise your sense of Fire Clan honor won’t be tarnished just because of a little rough sex. You can consider it an exception to the no-harm rule.”

Azula recovers quickly enough from her surprise, but she’s missing that confident smirk, one eyebrow arched like she’s been thrown off guard somehow. It’s kind of cute, actually.

Which is to say, it’s cute until Azula bends back down, her mouth covering one of Suki’s breasts, teeth nipping experimentally at her nipple.

Suki arches nearly off the bed. It doesn’t hurt, but that little tease of sharpness sends her senses spinning, and soon Azula is nipping her way slowly down her body, one hand dragging down her side, the other sliding under the arch of her back, short nails raking into her skin.

Suki clumsily bunches the sheets beneath herself to elevate her hips when Azula finally makes it to her destination, settling between Suki’s legs. She takes just a moment to nip at her hips, her inner thigh before returning to her center, licking a slow, hot stripe from entrance to clit. Her tongue is soft as velvet against her, and Suki’s heel digs into the mattress as that tongue turns devilish in its ministrations, delving and tasting while Azula’s hand comes up around Suki’s hip to rub teasing circles around her clit.

Suki arches, sweating, hands grasping at the sheets. Her throat feels raw and she realizes she’s been moaning and whining shamelessly. She’s so close, and she wants so badly, but she also doesn’t want it to be over, wants this to last as long as possible…

She reaches down and tugs at Azula’s hair trying to get her attention. When Azula doesn’t take the hint, she tries using words. She sort of gets the word “Azula” out in a way that’s recognizable, but she forgets the rest of what she wants as Azula wraps her lips around her clit and begins sucking.

This time when Suki says “Azula” it’s more of a sharp cry, and she feels more than hears the satisfied hum against her center. Suki does her best to catch her breath, tries to stop grinding against Azula’s face, finally managing to pull her away from herself to catch her eye. Azula doesn’t look pleased at being disrupted, and that just sends another wave of arousal through Suki.

“Here…” Suki manages to get out. “Need you here…inside…please…”

Catching her meaning, that smirk returns to Azula’s face and she gets to her knees, crawling over her. Suki can see the shine of her own arousal smeared across Azula’s mouth and chin, and it just about unravels her. Azula dips down and kisses her hard, and Suki can taste herself all over Azula’s lips and tongue and loves the absolute lewdness of it.

She moans into the kiss as Azula gets her hand between her legs, stroking her for a moment before sinking two fingers deep inside her. Suki breaks off the kiss, panting, because this is her favorite thing, has always been her favorite thing. She can’t come from it alone, but she loves the feeling of someone else inside her, always has. Finds the feeling completely incomparable, being taken apart from the inside, Azula’s fingers fucking deep into her, controlling her utterly.

She’s grasping at Azula’s shoulders and back, kissing whatever she can, desperate sounds spilling from her lips, needing more, needing it harder.

“Azula—“ she begs, another rush of arousal racing through her at Azula’s answering hiss and possessive bite to her neck.

Alright, so Azula likes hearing her name. Suki guesses that shouldn’t be surprising, not given how completely smug and arrogant and amazing…

“Azula,” she gasps, and Azula picks up her pace, driving her hard, pushing against her with everything she has. Honestly, if this were anyone else, Suki probably would have come about 100 times over by now, but Azula keeps switching tactics at the last second every time she gets close, keeping her dangling on the edge in a way that’s so horrible and so wonderful and so completely evil, Suki is starting to lose coherency. It doesn’t take long before she’s babbling Azula’s name like it’s the only thing that will keep her alive, and she can actually feel the way Azula delights in it which makes it all the better. Her heart is crashing against the inside of her chest, every bite, every kiss, every twist of her fingers, every slide of sweat-slicked skin against sweat-slicked skin sending pleasure racing and sparking through her like electricity.

Just when she thinks she’s finally about to go plummeting off the edge, Azula draws out of her, sitting back on her heels.

There is absolutely no containing the feverish sound of protest that spills from Suki’s lips as she struggles to prop herself up on her elbows.

“Why did you stop?” she gasps, voice coming out broken and hoarse, maybe the most pitiful sound she’s ever made.

Azula laughs, and it’s genuine and almost _happy_ , and it does something to Suki, far beyond just her sexual attraction to her.

“I did tell you I was going to ruin you,” Azula reminds her, squeezing her ankle briefly before getting off the bed.

“But you also said…” Suki protests pathetically.

“That I’d make you come until you couldn’t take it anymore?” Azula finishes for her. She grins devilishly. “I will. But not yet.”

She’s getting back _into_ her shirt and Suki has no idea what to do with herself, half wanting to lunge for her and wrestle her back on top of her, half afraid that if she moves an inch she’ll come anyway, and desperate as she is for it, she wants more than anything for it to be Azula who finally releases her over that edge.

“You just sit tight for a moment, angel,” Azula says, coming over and allowing Suki to suck on her fingers with a needy whine before withdrawing and chucking her affectionately under the chin. “You’re in for a _very_ long night.”


	14. Chapter 14

Azula has always loved learning what makes people tick. She’s always loved pushing people’s buttons. Always loved seeing how far she can push someone before they break. Always loved getting to see what the breaking does to them.

It’s a fascination she’s had since she was a child, and if she’s honest, she thinks it’s what Ozai found most promising in her. Zuko certainly didn’t possess any talent or interest in seeing just how intricately a person could be wound around one’s finger. Azula has always suspected that at one point, her mother must have possessed a knack for manipulation—there had to be _something_ Ozai prized about her enough to want to marry her. It wasn’t just her looks. Beauty was never enough for Ozai, just like it’s never been enough for Azula, not when it comes to attachment with any kind of staying power. Ambition, a sharp mind, tenacity, a certain ruthlessness, someone with the ability to inhabit all that is hot and all that is cold in a person, those are worthy traits of keeping someone around. So Ursa must have been that way at one point.

Azula has always blamed Zuko for Ursa’s turn to softness. She blames Zuko for stealing Ursa’s heart when he was born, before she had a chance. She blames Zuko for never being able to meet the mother she thinks she would have understood, and who would have understood her. She thinks Ozai blamed him, too. Ozai and Azula have always seen eye to eye, have always seen the same, and what they saw was the way softness can corrupt. And that horrible softness spread between mother and son so utterly that they slipped away from the family for good. Zuko by choice, and Ursa…well, Ursa was more complicated.

Azula considers it a blessing of being the youngest of the Sozin family. She got to observe the mistakes of those who came before her, so she could be absolutely certain never to repeat them herself. Zuko was the perfect blueprint of what _not_ to do, along with Uncle Iroh, and Ursa most of all. Softness simply cannot survive the teeth of the world. It is break or be broken.

This is how Azula spent her childhood. Studying people, studying how to break them. She saw the anger and hatred Zuko and Ursa brought out in her father, and delighted that she and only she was capable of earning his approval, his kindness even his affection on the rare occasion.

All it took was studying what made people tick. How to push them to their limits. How to break them. She honed it. She perfected it. She found some way to apply it to every single aspect of her life.

And that includes here, and now, in the guest room of Zuko’s house, with Suki gasping and struggling beneath her. And it’s fucking breathtaking.

Suki’s stamina is something to marvel at. Azula has long suspected this would be the case, but it’s beautiful seeing it in action. It will be even more beautiful to see her break.

But Suki isn’t showing any signs of breaking just yet, which is impressive. To be honest, Azula thought Suki would have a harder time recovering from the first orgasm she allows her. Azula makes her work hard for it. Point of fact, she torments her. Keeps stealing it away from her just before she can reach it. Can’t help but punish her just a _little_ for making this so much more difficult than it needed to be. For resisting her for so long. For saying things that had hurt, for surprising her, for getting under her skin, for getting the better of her on more than one occasion. Azula _has_ to punish her for that.

She’s never made things this difficult for anyone else she’s fucked. Sure, she’s pushed, she’s broken, she’s done what it takes to burrow herself in their memories, to make absolutely certain she’s never forgotten by any of them, making herself the gold standard no one else will ever live up to. But she’s never made things _difficult._

Suki is another matter entirely. Azula draws that first climax out of her only when she senses Suki’s desperation reaching a critical point, when Suki begins biting at her, clawing at her back, muscular legs trying to draw her in closer, becoming less submissive, more demanding. That’s the first push, the first revelation; when Suki becomes desperate enough, she rises to the occasion rather than falling to begging or submission. Suki makes her desires known. Even tries once—and fails, but the attempt is wonderful—to flip Azula over and take matters into her own hands.

Azula revels in the novelty of that fight, has never experienced that before. It takes effort to hold her down, sends excitement rolling through her as she wraps her fingers hard around Suki’s wrists and forces them back against the mattress. Azula always appreciated the sight of her slight but muscular frame; now she’s getting to experience the strength of her, the way she arches against her, the ways she pulls and pushes. She’s an open book again like this, no words to hide behind, no moral judgments. Only an almost feral shade of desire.

Azula buries her fingers deep inside her, finding herself resting her head in Suki’s neck to stabilize herself against the rush of arousal that tumbles through her at the feeling of the slick, burning heat clenching around her. She explores every inch of Suki’s body, kisses the bullet wound, grazes her teeth over the burn mark, feels something tugging at her at both points of past pains, something like guilt, something like pride, something like possessiveness, something like affection. Hearing her own name spilling so messily from Suki’s lips sends her senses soaring, fills her with a kind of recklessness she’s unaccustomed to. She’s actually panting from the pressure of withstanding it all—Suki’s mounting pleasure seems to emanate from her in waves, reaching and curling around Azula, pulling her into a tide of craving that almost makes her feel weak.

Which is why Azula has to pull away from her. Just for a moment. Yes, in part, she pulls away because she wants Suki to have to stew in her own frustration, that’s the reasoning Azula will forever cling to—but in the deepest recesses of her mind, she thinks she had to stop simply so that she didn’t lose control herself. She knows better than to lose control like that when she’s with someone. Knows better…

_Do you really know better? What exactly is it that you think you know so much better than the rest of us?_

Suki’s words from the other night swim to the surface of her mind at the same time she feels Suki’s hands reaching around her waist, urging her back down onto the mattress, kissing her neck, demanding her attention.

And Azula pushes her down, and Suki tries to guide her movements, tries to _take_ what she wants, not waiting for Azula to give it to her.

It’s a new feeling, and Azula hates how much she loves it. She attempts to wrestle back control, first through force, then through gentleness, then through specific areas of Suki’s body she’s noted down as the most vulnerable, the most susceptible to invasion. She doesn’t understand why everything with Suki always has to be a _struggle_ , but it’s exactly because of that struggle that Suki comes as hard as she does.

It’s gorgeous to witness, the way her eyes squeeze shut, the way she bites her lip before finally arching back with a cry, every muscle in her body seizing against her for a second before going slack, hips humping restlessly up into Azula’s hand, head turning to bite Azula’s neck as she rides out the aftershocks.

Azula pants against her damp skin, burying her nose in her hair and inhaling the sweet scent of it mingled with the scent of sweat and sex and finds herself growing warm.

Certain the intensity of her orgasm will leave Suki depleted for a moment, Azula begins to pull away to allow her a brief moment to recover. After all, she’s far from done with her, and Suki deserves a little break before Azula starts back in with her more aggressive assault, her grander goals of seeing just how far she can push her.

To her surprise, Suki doesn’t seem all that interested in recovering unless she’s kissing Azula in the meantime. Suki seems to love kissing almost more than anything else, and fuck is she ever good at it. Azula allows herself to sink down into her arms, kissing back languidly. Suki’s methods of recovering are wonderfully distracting, and Azula almost doesn’t register the way Suki’s hands have wandered until she feels the button of her jeans being popped open, zipper drawn down.

Azula jerks back from the kiss, one hand snapping down to clamp over Suki’s wrist, dragging it away from her jeans and pinning it down against the mattress. She locks eyes with Suki warningly, her resolution somewhat undermined by her body’s response to Suki’s desire to touch her in return. She’s aware that her breath is coming a little labored, that there’s an insistent throbbing between her legs that demands the exact sort of attention Suki seems to want to give her.

But Azula knows better.

Azula knows better.

She does.

She takes advantage of Suki’s restrained position and starts in again. Suki seems frustrated that she isn’t allowed to touch, nipping at her to show her displeasure, but otherwise doesn’t protest, quickly melting against Azula’s renewed efforts.

Her second orgasm comes quickly, followed by a third, smaller than the first two. But she still doesn’t seem close to breaking, even with the quick succession. Instead, she tries again, hands going back to Azula’s fly. And again, Azula denies her, pinning her hands back to the mattress.

“Please,” Suki breathes up at her. Those big eyes are dark wells of desire, seem to have their own gravity pulling at her.

There’s the second push, the second revelation; Suki isn’t content to remain passive, is determined in the things she wants and how she gets them, tries different approaches, becomes soft in her appeals, all aggression gone.

“I won’t do anything if you don’t want me to,” Suki murmurs, shifting under her just enough to tempt her again. “I just want to feel. Please.” She lifts her head and softly kisses Azula’s jaw. “Please.”

Azula sighs—tries to make it sound like a sigh of annoyance instead of one that sends warmth curling down to her toes.

“You’re lucky you’re so damn cute,” she grumbles, then gets off the bed, shimmying out of her jeans and underwear. Just for her.

Suki’s eyes are wide and dark on her, and she shifts to the edge of the mattress, beginning to kiss hungrily down Azula’s torso.

Azula takes her chin in her hand, stopping her before she reaches her imagined destination. She takes a moment to admire the needy expression on her face before swiping her thumb over her lower lip.

“Maybe if you’re very, _very_ lucky, I’ll let you have a taste,” she tells Suki, satisfaction curling warmly in her gut at Suki’s approving sound at the reward she thinks she’s been promised.

It’s not a promise. It’s a tease, and not one Azula has any plans of following through on. She allows herself to approach the edge of climax when she’s fucking someone, but she never allows anything that might push her over completely. The feeling of Suki against her newly bared flesh is dangerous enough, forget about letting that tempting mouth anywhere near her.

In truth, only one person has ever made Azula come, besides her own self. That privilege, for lack of a better word, belongs solely to Ty Lee, and even then, it was a mistake.

It’s the unfortunate fact of Ty Lee’s existence; it comes riddled with dangers for Azula. Even now. Something about Ty Lee has always made something soften in Azula, has always melted her somehow, has gotten her to relax her guard, to open up.

Not losing control in any aspect of her life, including sex, is something Azula regards as imperative to her survival. Her rigid commitment to absolute control during sex is entirely by design. And Ty Lee is the one flaw in that design. Very nearly a fatal flaw.

Suki isn’t about to become a second flaw. No matter Azula’s attachment to her, her fascination with her, her strange fondness for her.

Still, it’s hard to deny Suki’s sound of relief when she’s finally able to feel her bared heat rubbing and slipping against her own. Apparently it satisfies her enough for Azula to go on the attack again, pushing more methodically now. She’s more determined than ever to see her break.

Suki keeps it together admirably well, quickly falling victim to Azula’s renewed assault, but straining stubbornly for more, rising to meet the challenge Azula set for her before they started any of this, daring her to try to ruin her. It’s fucking exhilarating. Suki isn’t a sweet, submissive thing; she pushes back. Not with the intention of breaking, but simply, it seems, for the fun of it.

But even Suki’s stubborn pride has its limits, and it’s here that Azula begins to feel more like herself again. It’s a slow shift, like watching flames flicker down into their last burning embers. The fluttering of Suki’s walls becomes weaker and more erratic, and the expression on her face becomes one less of ecstasy, one more of struggle, of exhaustion, even tinged with the faintest traces of pain.

Suki shudders weakly against Azula as she licks into her, legs trembling around her head. Azula can’t help the smug feeling rising up in her when Suki’s fingers curl in her hair, seeming not to possess enough strength to pull.

“Azula…” she hears above her, and it’s fragile, and yes, pained. Like she’s officially stumbled over that precarious line from ecstasy to agony. No longer a fun game, now a desperate grasp for survival.

Azula hums with satisfaction against her over-sensitized sex, and begins to kiss her way slowly back up Suki’s body. Suki flinches at each touch of her lips like it burns, soft, quavering whimpers falling from her lips.

She sighs gratefully when Azula lays out against her and begins kissing her, tangling their legs together. It’s a short reprieve—Suki tenses when Azula runs her fingers once more through her folds, breaking away from the kiss with a pained hitch of her breath.

“Azula wait, I don’t think I can take anymore,” she protests, voice barely audible, not enough strength left in her even to speak above a whine.

“You can, angel,” Azula says, nosing at the sweat-dampened hair clinging to Suki’s neck before returning her gaze to Suki’s face. “Just relax, sweet girl. Just one more.”

Suki hesitates for a moment, then gathers enough energy to nod, fingers inching into her hair, eyes closing, brow creased with determination.

Azula feels something in her melt at the sight, feels something warm in her chest that goes beyond just physical satisfaction at Suki using the last of her reserves to give her what she wants.

She presses soft kisses to her jaw as she strokes between Suki’s legs, then separates just enough to watch her expression lose its focus, watch her eyes begin to glaze over as she struggles to meet Azula’s demands just one more time. Azula loves this, loves seeing that look, the one that’s almost lost touch with reality, the one that makes it clear Azula has finally succeeded in pushing her to her absolute limits. That final push.

Suki comes with a shiver and a jagged sigh, body going completely limp, drained beyond what most would be able to handle. She squeezes her eyes closed, seeming unable to meet Azula’s gaze, body trembling slightly. She looks like it wouldn’t take much more than a breath of air to shatter her completely, like even the softest touch would be agonizing.

Azula gets off the bed as carefully as she can, making sure not to do anything that might disturb Suki’s already tenuous sense of relief. She takes just a moment to admire the trembling mess she’s made of her, then makes her way to the shower, turning the water on and stepping into the steam.

It doesn’t take her long to get off, and she drops her forehead against the tile as she comes down, bringing herself back to reality. She keeps it quiet and controlled, because if she’s honest,her almost overpowering instinct right now is to go back to bed and get herself off with Suki instead.

Not that Suki would have the energy for that now.

Not that that would be a good idea even if she did.

Azula turns the temperature down, doing her best to freeze up any further desire in her. It doesn’t work completely, but it’s better than nothing. Allows her to wash up like a normal person in any case.

She returns to the bedroom to find that Suki has recovered at least enough to lift her head at the sight of her. She doesn’t look as fragile anymore, looks like she’s softened back down to a more comfortable afterglow which is a _very_ good look for her. Even if she does still look just this side of wrecked.

To Azula’s surprise, Suki’s lips quirk into an amused half smile as she takes in Azula’s appearance, eyes soft.

“Had to take a cold shower after all that, huh,” she observes in a sleepy mumble, one eyebrow cocked like this was somehow _her_ triumph.

Azula purses her lips, fondness overtaking her again at Suki’s little tease.

“You might want to consider doing the same, you’re a mess,” she returns, frustrated to find an answering smile on her own lips. “Though I’d be surprised if you were actually able to stand right now.”

“I’m tougher than I look.”

Azula smirks. “Alright, try to stand then, I’d love to see it,” she challenges lightly.

Suki narrows her eyes, then pouts. “Alright, fine, I was bluffing,” she admits.

Azula laughs and feels something warm and…fuzzy…at this easier banter between them. Well that’s no good.

“You should get some sleep,” she says. “You deserve it after all that.” She hesitates for just a moment, then pats the doorjamb once, and turns.

“Azula.”

Azula looks over her shoulder to find that Suki has managed to prop herself up on one elbow and is looking at her carefully.

“I would never assume, or ask, that you stay,” she says. “I know you better than that. But if you wanted to…you could.”

Azula searches her expression. It’s serene, and sincere, and contains no hint of begging or clinginess.

The thing is, Azula did take a very cold shower, and that bed, with Suki’s warm body in it, looks very comfortable. Looks fucking heavenly, in fact.

But she also doesn’t want any signals getting crossed here. Warmth and comfort have no place in what she should be feeling—namely, the satisfaction of finally getting Suki in bed, and the triumph of paying her back for being so grating and stubborn, for getting under her skin somehow, for making her doubt, making her wish. This is the satisfaction of conquest, and the triumph of regaining her sense of control by dragging Suki down to her level, by ruining her.

But Suki doesn’t look ruined. Wrecked by amazing sex, sure, but she doesn’t look broken. She looks…like Suki. Not like something Azula has taken and made her own. Suki is still Suki, is still just as self-possessed as ever, if significantly worn out. She’s looking at Azula with a sort of wanting that is neither desperate nor hungry. Like all she wants is simple closeness. Like after Azula did all that to her, she’s still whole, still complete, and just wants to be with her in sleep.

Azula straightens with an easy smile meant to put distance back between them as she tries to reconcile too many opposing truths at once. “I think the last thing we need is the boys coming back in the morning to find that I’ve spent the night utterly debauching you,” she says, and Suki laughs with a roll of her eyes. “I’ll take the couch.”

Suki bites her lip, but nods without protest. She adds one more tease before Azula leaves:

“You didn’t ruin me, you know,” she says.

Azula smirks. “Guess I’ll just have to keep working at it,” she replies without thinking.

It doesn’t occur to her until she collapses on the couch what she just promised. A continuation. An _easy_ continuation. Like this could just be a regular… _thing_ that they do. She pulls the blanket up over her head and tries not to admit that she may have just pushed herself a little beyond her own limits as well.


	15. Chapter 15

When Suki wakes up the following morning, she feels somehow…more…of herself. Which is to say, she feels exhausted, and excited, and glowy, every inch of her body completely alive. She feels Azula on her and in her still, and wants to curl around the feeling and hold it tight.

This is nothing new; Suki gets snuggly after sex. Even one night stands have always included copious amounts of snuggling and making out before parting ways. The fact that sex with Azula was just this side of Earth-shattering…apparently just amplifies the snuggly feelings.

She’s also somehow still turned on. Soreness and the lingering scent of Azula makes her want to roll over on top of Azula and fuck her slowly and lazily, no rush, no games, no power plays, just easy, lazy morning sex.

Of course, Azula isn’t here.

Suki wonders for a moment if she’s about to feel like she’s been used, wonders if she’s about to feel guilty, or regretful. She waits for a long moment, staring up at the ceiling, tracing the various cracks and shadows with her eyes, waiting for any hint of bad feeling to seep into her mind or settle into her chest. When nothing bad does, she wonders if she’s about to be hit with confusion or frustration. When none of that happens either, she feels a small smile she doesn’t know how to account for tug at her lips.

She rolls over on her stomach and stretches. More than likely, this odd feeling of bliss will slip away as soon as her afterglow ends and reality comes kicking in her door. But for now, she feels like she’s hovering, feels like every inch of her is still tingling, every singular molecule in her body, right down to the tips of her toes.

Truth be told, Suki has never been fucked that thoroughly before, to the point that she thinks she might have lost her grip on reality for a second at the end there. Sex the first time around is rarely that amazing—Suki is used to at least a little fumbling, a little awkwardness. Azula seemed to bypass all that, immediately and expertly zeroing in on Suki’s weak points. She was precise and seemed to listen and react to every sound Suki made, every flinch, every strain, every response Suki had to her, and committed each one to memory, applying that knowledge to its fullest potential. She put that strategic mind to perfect use in taking Suki completely apart.

Not that Azula needs to know any of that. Her ego is already out of fucking control, Suki can only imagine how smug she’d be if—well, no, she’s probably well aware of the fact that she fucked Suki well and truly senseless. So that smugness is probably already at its peak. Still. Azula doesn’t need to be told all that in so many words.

Suki sits up slowly, and maybe it’s simply the act of becoming upright that causes some of her thoughts to shift and tumble more properly into place. Not many of them. But a few of them. Most notably the fact that she just spent several hours of her night being fucked by the former heir to the Fire Clan.

Suki waits again for some sort of regret or guilt to wriggle into her. But it doesn’t. More than anything, she just feels curious.

She gets out of bed quietly (and yes, it does take a few tries, but that’s not the point), careful not to make a sound as she makes her way down the short hall to the living room. Azula is still passed out on the couch which is a little satisfying. During the entire time Suki has known her, she’s never once seen Azula sleep later than her; she always claims to rise with the sun. Good to know she wore herself out a bit last night too.

Suki showers quickly, slowing only to take inventory of new marks on her skin. Each one is in a place easily concealed under clothes, which is both a relief and a little disappointing. Azula doesn’t seem like the type to shy away from making her claim on a person completely public knowledge—she imagines Azula would actually get a thrill out of marking someone visibly and having them scramble to try to cover up. It’s simply more Azula-ish.

She seems to have gone to the effort of marking Suki up very specifically, though, so the evidence can easily be hidden. Suki isn’t sure whether it’s an exercise in self control, or if Azula considers humiliation a type of hurt and therefore off limits to do as per the guidelines of her Clan law, or if she actually cares to uphold Suki’s dignity by not announcing to the world that she spent the night…what was the word she’d used…right, _debauching_ her. Suki smiles before she can stop herself. Only Azula would use a word like _debauch_ and make it sound like both a separation and a tease.

Once she’s washed away the soreness and the stickiness, she slips back into some of the more casual clothes she left from when she was staying in the guest room. And yes, the shirt is loose enough that sometimes it dips down to reveal the small red mark Azula left on her breast, and maybe that’s sort of strategic and completely intentional, but that’s not anyone’s business.

When she returns to the living room, Azula has finally gotten up and is taking herself through slowed-down forms in the small cleared-out space by the east-facing windows, her back to Suki. This isn’t the first time Suki has seen this—Azula starts every morning this way, and likely has since she was a kid, drilling and perfecting what already looks perfect to Suki. She moves with both power and an easy grace that’s nothing short of mesmerizing. From here, Suki can see the flex and pull of each muscle working together, every movement so controlled she makes hardly a sound beyond harsh exhales at each strike, landing almost silently. She can make out the curved edges of black and red at Azula’s shoulder, mostly covered by her tanktop, and remembers with some wistfulness the phoenix tattoo she saw when they had still been on lockdown in the safe house and Suki chanced to see her while stupidly hiding in her closet.

Suki wishes she’d gotten to see that tattoo closer last night—wishes she’d gotten to see _anything_ closer last night. It’s true that Suki has never been fucked as thoroughly as she was by Azula, but she also didn’t get to do much exploring of Azula in return. She’d have loved more than anything to map out the shape of Azula, like Azula mapped out the shape of her, would have loved to find every part of her body that could draw out a hitch in her breath, or coax out a moan, or cause her to move in ways that she wouldn’t be able to control for once.

As it was, Suki had been able to do very little except cling to whatever pieces of sanity she could. Towards the end, it had felt more like survival then simple pleasure, and somehow all the more satisfying because of it. She’d once thought of her attraction to Azula as something like the tide, now she thinks it’s more like a storm, far more perilous, but also far more exhilarating. She just wishes she’d been able to do the same for Azula, would have loved to take the time to just _enjoy_ her, every piece of her…

“Like what you see?” Azula asks without turning around.

Suki startles at the realization Azula has been fully aware of the fact that she’s had an audience this whole time, feels heat rising in her at the obvious, very smug smile coloring Azula’s tone.

Suki manages a scoff, making her way to the kitchen area. She turns on the stove to bring the water in the teapot to a boil and begins rummaging through Zuko’s cupboards.

“Actually, I was trying to get a good look at the sunrise, and you happened to be in the way,” she says over her shoulder, and is incredibly gratified by Azula’s answering laugh.

“I’m sure,” she says.

Suki finds the tea bags she was looking for and sets one in a mug, leaning back against the counter and watching as Azula finishes her form, feeling a sort of strange contentment in seeing her only through silhouette.

Azula finishes at about the same time the water finally comes to a boil, and Suki tears her eyes away, pouring it into the mug to steep. She sees Azula reach for a small towel to pat the back of her neck dry before coming over to the island counter and leaning her hands against it, watching Suki. Suki lingers on the faint sheen of sweat on her skin, and when she finally looks back up at Azula’s face, Azula is looking back with one eyebrow raised curiously, a small, teasing curve to her lips.

“I thought you were more of a coffee person,” she says, indicating the steaming cup of tea in front of her.

“I am. This is for you.” So saying, Suki slides the cup over to Azula, who takes it with some surprise. She sniffs at it.

“You used the spiced one,” she says, eyes lifting to meet Suki’s.

“Well Zuko hates it, so I figured it was probably your favorite,” Suki says.

Azula’s lips purse in a barely-contained smile. “You figured correctly.”

“Actually he told me,” Suki admits. She’s seen Zuko shudder in revulsion of this particular brand of spiced tea, but Azula refuses to drink anything else. “He bought it specifically for you, you know.”

“My my, he really is making a play for best sibling of the year award,” Azula says with a snideness that seems more instinctive than felt. “Though he might want to consider spending his money on fixing up this wreck of a house, rather than trying to make friends through tea.”

“You can always just say thank you, Azula,” Suki says.

Azula actually looks surprised for a moment, then drops her gaze to the mug, fingers tapping against it. “Thank you,” she murmurs quietly.

Suki laughs. “I meant you should say thank you to Zuko.”

“Well he didn’t make me this, you did,” Azula mutters grumpily, defenses coming up. “Anyway. In the spirit of keeping things even, I suppose I should make you some coffee in return for the tea. Where’s the thing?”

Suki watches with a perplexed smile as Azula searches for the coffee machine, finally pulling it out of a cupboard and plugging it into the wall. Suki isn’t exactly surprised to see that it was tucked away—back when they were first dating, Sokka tried to get Zuko to become a coffee person like himself, but Zuko found it absolutely disgusting. The only time he ever brings it out is when Sokka is over, and while Suki was staying with them.

“Azula, you don’t have to make me anything,” Suki tells her.

“Suki, I’m obviously going to make coffee for you, it’s just good fucking manners,” Azula retorts. She hesitates, fingers hovering uncertainly over the myriad of buttons on the coffee machine, and frowns. “Now how the _hell…?”_

“You put the beans in the grinder first.”

Azula scowls at her. “I know that.”

“Do you?”

“Yes.” She sets her jaw. “No.”

“You made me coffee before, didn’t you? The first morning I was here?”

“The machine may have already been on when you got up,” Azula admits in a grouchy mumble. “All I had to do was pour the thing. I thought it just _came_ like that.”

“It doesn’t. You have to—“

“Grind the fucking beans, I get it.” She looks around herself, then opens the top of the machine as if she expects to see them hiding in there, bristling when they continue to elude her. “So where the hell are they?” she demands finally, seemingly to an invisible Zuko.

Suki laughs and comes forward, gently taking Azula’s wrist to get her attention. Azula’s gaze flies to her in surprise, and she tenses at the sudden touch.

“Seriously, I can take it from here,” Suki tells her. She steps in, pulling Azula’s arms around her waist. “You’ve already done more than enough for me,” she adds, angling and taking Azula’s earlobe between her teeth. She’s well aware her snuggly post-sex feelings aren’t exactly Azula’s speed, and she’d never try to push her, but she does think she’s earned a quick bite to her ear.

Azula allows the contact for a moment, but when Suki starts kissing her neck, she pulls away, taking a step back so they’re no longer touching at all.

Suki crosses her arms and leans her hip against the counter, fixing Azula with a steady look. She probably should have expected this. “You’re not gonna be weird now, are you?” she asks.

Azula blinks. “What do you mean, ‘weird’?”

Suki lifts an eyebrow. “I mean that with maybe a couple exceptions, you do seem sort of like the ‘one and done’ type,” she says. “And then there’s all your talk about seduction—though I think it’s worth mentioning I’m the one who started it. So what I’m asking is now that you’ve gotten what you wanted out of me, are you gonna start acting all withdrawn and angsty?”

“I’m not withdrawn and angsty.”

Suki purses her lips. “You are,” she says. She shifts her weight, uncomfortable but wanting to make things clear, not let them get muddied and strained. “Listen, I liked last night. A lot. At the risk of inflating your ego to the point of popping, that was very possibly the best sex I’ve ever had. Ever.”

Azula perks up at that, smug smile beginning to slip back into place.

“But if you’re gonna start acting like an ass just because you don’t know how to continue being friends with someone after sex…” Suki trails off, actually not sure what to follow that up with. She sighs. “It would just suck. I like where we’ve gotten to, and I don’t want you to just erase all that. You’ve got a million rules and walls and loopholes to keep yourself detached from people, I’ve seen them all. It would just kind of suck if you started acting that way with me.”

Azula’s smugness has vanished again, and she’s studying Suki carefully, seeming to pick apart every word she’s just said and weighing each one. More notably though, is the fact that she looks off-kilter. Like Suki just hit a very specific note in her.

“Do you really think we’re friends?” she asks finally.

Suki tamps down on a blush, not realizing she’d said the word _friend_ so easily and thoughtlessly. She exhales slowly. “I don’t know,” she admits. “I don’t know.” She scratches at her arm. “Look, I’m not looking for anything, I don’t know, long-lasting, or anything,” she says. “But I like…what we did last night and I’m still…I’m still supposed to be looking after you. Maybe while we’re working on figuring out how to keep you safe, if you wanted to keep…doing whatever we’re doing…I could probably be okay with that.”

Azula continues to look her over thoughtfully, expression guarded. Finally she shrugs with pretend airiness. “Well. Just as long as you promise not to fall in love with me,” she says with a teasing lilt.

Suki rolls her eyes, but finds herself laughing all the same. “I don’t really see that becoming a problem,” she says. “You’re still sort of terrible.”

Azula smirks, stepping in and trapping her against the counter. Her gaze drops to the half-exposed mark she left on Suki’s breast from the night before. “The worst,” she agrees before dipping in, first kissing the mark before lifting back up to her mouth and beginning to kiss Suki in a way that has Suki quickly coming undone. She threads her fingers back through Azula’s hair, tries to pull her impossibly closer, humming with satisfaction as Azula’s hands being to wander under her shirt.

She breaks the kiss when Azula slides her leg between her thighs, soreness from last night both delicious and, well, sore. As much as she’d like to see, purely out of curiosity, if she could take more so soon, she’d sort of rather shift focus to Azula, see just how much she can get away with. Azula was very firm last night about not letting Suki touch her, only relenting and stripping down when Suki asked explicitly. And she was indignant, but almost affectionate when she told Suki she was _lucky she was so damn cute._

The memory of it makes her warm, and she kisses back with renewed vigor zinging through her senses.

Azula separates just enough to breathe out, “What are you smiling about?”

“Nothing,” Suki says, unaware that she _had_ been smiling into the kiss, and now unable to stop. “Just remembering some things from last night.” She nips at Azula’s lower lip. “You can be kind of sweet when you want to be.”

She feels Azula grin against her for a split second before her fingers curl into Suki’s hair and she tugs Suki’s head back sharply, holding her there. She holds her gaze with a self-assured and highly amused dominance that has Suki going weak in the knees. She shudders as Azula leans in and skims her lips up the side of her bared throat.

“When I want to be,” Azula murmurs in agreement against her skin, relaxing her hold on Suki’s hair just the slightest bit and resuming the kiss, sounding much too satisfied with herself.

Suki paws helplessly at her, trying for her pants, tugging a little at the waistband, but Azula’s hands skim down to take firm hold of her wrists, placing them one by one against the edge of the counter before separating from her. Her expression is calm enough, but her grip on Suki’s wrists leaves no room for interpretation; Suki is absolutely not allowed to touch.

Suki can’t help but be curious about that. As someone who never hesitates when it comes to taking what she wants, Azula seems like she’d be more demanding in her own needs. As it happens, she’s completely the opposite. Clearly not for lack of a sex drive, there’s just this very definite aversion to any kind of contact that might feel good for her.

Azula’s mood seems to have shifted just a little bit as well, to something that borders on distrust, and Suki thinks she just made a mistake, shouldn’t have pushed when Azula already seemed reluctant toward the idea of continuing their…whatever it is that they have between them.

Seeming to sense Suki’s concern, Azula glosses over any appearance of uncertainty with her easy habits of separation; a tease, with just the smallest lingering note of warning.

“You really are trouble, aren’t you,” she says, gaze resting on her lips. “Maybe it’s best if we do some work pertaining to your job first, hm? Don’t want you getting spoiled on me.”

Before Suki can protest, Azula nips playfully at her lower lip and separates from her, making her way to the dining room table with its mess of papers and theories.

“That’s not fair,” Suki complains, taking a second to steady herself before following Azula over.

“Poor Suki,” Azula says with a smile, but without an ounce of sympathy. With a table between them, she looks more herself. “Already whining for more.”

“I’m not whining,” Suki mumbles. She plunks down in the chair beside Azula, leaning her elbows on the table and looking at the sea of information in front of her, trying to regain some sense of dignity. “So what have I missed in the last few days?”

“A lot of reading, mostly,” Azula tells her. Suki can feel her eyes on her, and focuses harder on what’s in front of her.

“This may shock you, but my brother is keeping me on a very short leash—I haven’t left the house since our little tryst the other night,” Azula continues. “Even though I told him I might be of better assistance in tracking down whoever attacked the Boiling Rock and figuring out what Zhao is up to if I could get a good look at the place.”

She points to a recent newspaper clipping from a couple days previous. “Zuko keeps looking at the more overt explosion of gang warfare of late, but he’s missing the grander picture hiding in the minutia. Right here: three seemingly innocuous accidents in three seemingly useless buildings across three bordering neighborhoods. I know those places. They’re controlled by Water Clan, built along the same winding drainage system.”

She traces her finger demonstratively along the edge of the paper. “They’ve made absolutely disgusting use of the sewers to transport their contraband,” she tells Suki. “The buildings mentioned here aren’t seats of power by any means, but my father has had eyes on them as likely drop-off points for a while. It was always seemingly small-scale street gangs who pay dues to Hama and her people in exchange for a cut of their goods skulking around, making small deals here and there. It was a more recent theory of my father’s that what seemed small-scale was a more intricate flow of goods. It trickled in, rather than coming in the more grandiose deals he made, or the ones Long Feng is prone to. My father pinpointed these three specific sites to go after. He felt they were critical points of weakness in the flow of Element X trade for the Water Clan.”

She drums her fingers restlessly against the top of the table. “The interesting thing, of course, is that he didn’t share the knowledge of these sites with anyone, except me. All those plans he had for the dismantlement of the Water Clan trade routes were kept locked inside his head, and inside the Dragonbone Catacombs. And guess who I made the mistake of hinting at my father’s plans to the night of the attack on the Boiling Rock.”

“Zhao.”

“The very son of a bitch,” Azula confirms. “I think that before he set fire to the estate, he returned to the Catacombs to get a hold of whatever business outlines my father had in the works. Then he destroyed the place so no one else could have any knowledge of it. And now he’s enacting Ozai’s plans. Clumsily, of course, he has all the leadership skills of a doorknob, but these are three very specific sites from a very specific plan of my father’s that in theory, no one else should have known about. If Zhao is trying to enact it the way it was intended, he’ll soon regret having lost the Element X shipment to the fire at the Boiling Rock. That strain of Element X was of more importance than his tiny brain would have been able to comprehend at the time of the attack.”

Suki looks at her closely, still uncertain why that particular deal was so important, but distracted by a more pressing issue. “Do you think Zhao would have reason to go back to the Boiling Rock?” she asks. “Like maybe to find out if there was anything left? Or maybe to see about arranging a similar shipment along the same routes?”

Azula cocks her head. “It’s not completely out of the realm of possibility,” she says. “Why do you ask?”

“Because I went back to check out the Boiling Rock a couple days ago, and there was someone there,” Suki tells her. “Whoever it was disappeared before I could get a good look at him, but maybe…I don’t know, it could’ve been him. Or maybe someone working for him.”

Azula considers this. “Zhao left the Boiling Rock after you were shot, and before I made the very stupid and very heroic decision to choose rescuing you over securing my legacy.”

Suki affords her a small huff of a laugh.

“The fire began after he started to leave, but before he seized the opportunity to shoot at me. If we’re right about the rest of it, he then went back to the estate, took what he wanted from the Catacombs, then set the whole estate on fire,” Azula says. “I think at the time, not knowing that that particular strain of Element X was important, he cut his losses, and had no reason to do anything other than write the shipment off as an unfortunate but minor failure. But if he has my father’s plans and is beginning to see the bigger picture, he’d definitely want to get his hands on that strain. Then again, if he knew it was lost in the fire, I can’t imagine what he’d have to gain by going back. Unless he’s desperate enough to be reduced to retracing his footsteps like some stray dog.”

She huffs and sits back in her chair. “Now if dear Zuzu would release me into the wild so I could do some snooping around of my own, that might at least help me get a feel for things. But as it is…well, in his words, I suppose you never know what I might do if I’m left to my own devices, do you.”

“Well Zuko isn’t here,” Suki points out, not sure if she’s about to make a huge mistake. “I could always…I mean, you and I could go together. I’d have to bring you right back obviously, but if you think it would help to go back to the Boiling Rock…it wouldn’t hurt to try.”

Azula smiles slowly, giving her a look that’s equal parts mischievous and fondness. “You really are my favorite captor,” she remarks.

Suki rolls her eyes at Azula’s typically melodramatic statement. “You say that a lot. Exactly how many other captors have you had before to compare to?” she laughs.

Azula’s smile remains, but the humor seems to flicker out from her eyes, leaving them cool despite the twist of her lips. “Enough to have a favorite,” she says mildly.

Suki frowns, wants to ask further into that, but Azula is already getting to her feet, her lighter humor back in place. “So are you driving, or am I?” she asks.

Suki gets to her feet with an annoyed huff. “Given that it’s my car _—“_ she begins.

“Trick question,” Azula interrupts with a smile, lifting up her hand and twirling a ring of keys— _Suki’s_ ring of keys—showily around her finger.

Suki stares, dumbstruck. “How the hell did you… _where_ the hell did you…?” To say nothing of _when…_

Azula takes Suki’s chin in her hand, devious smile curling at her lips. “Try not to forget who you’re dealing with, angel,” she says, kissing her briefly before making her way to the door to get her shoes.

Sound advice, honestly. Snuggly post-sex feelings aside, Suki needs to remember not to fall into any traps Azula might be setting for her. Azula remains a morally dicey ally, and regardless of whatever physical attraction might be happening, Suki would be a fool to trust her implicitly.

She joins her at the front door and snatches the keyring back from Azula, who grins at her, seeming completely content to give in. For now. Everything is always _for now_ with Azula.

“I need you to behave while we’re out,” Suki tells her sternly.

“For you? Always,” Azula replies, a completely untrustworthy and utterly charismatic glint to her eye.

*

Unlike Suki, Azula seems to take no issue with walking in the ashy remains of the Boiling Rock. The idea of what’s mixed in with that ash still makes Suki’s stomach twist, but she follows her nevertheless, breathing shallowly.

Where the Sozin estate was still partially standing, the Boiling Rock has been burned almost completely to the ground, only a few crumbled mounds of brick and concrete surrounding the perimeter, none of them reaching much higher than Suki’s shoulder. If there’s anything to be feared, it’s the unsteadiness of the floor above the cellar, and she tells Azula as much.

They move carefully, Azula crouching and taking special interest in certain points—if Suki had to guess, the point where she was shot, the point where she abandoned the duffel bag with its oh so very important shipment of Element X, and at the far side of the bar, the booth Azula had been stationed in before all hell broke loose. You’d hardly know there was ever a booth there, or that it was on an elevated platform, or that the Boiling Rock had been a staple in Republic City’s vast array of seedy clubs at all.

There are a few errant shards of glass to be wary of. News outlets have attributed the club’s swift and utter destruction to the immense quantities of alcohol kept both below and above the building, not to mention placed on every table and lining every corner of the walls. To hear people tell about it, the fire was nothing short of explosive. Suki, for better or worse, was unconscious for the worst of it.

“What are you looking for?” she asks finally, when Azula’s wandering around the flattened building continues to turn up absolutely nothing.

“I don’t know,” Azula says. “Anything that suggests Zhao’s been back—there are footprints all over, but if I had to guess they’re probably just the rescue and demo crews that have come through.” She taps her lip thoughtfully. “I have to wonder if Zhao has rallied my father’s people, or if he’s working alone, or still trying to gain control over them or earn their supplication. Killing me to take on the name of Firelord makes some amount of sense I guess, but it’s hardly a clean break. Despite what my brother has tried to convince me of, some of the Clan will take exception to his turning against me. And if he’s the one who started the fire, at a Fire Clan establishment, filled to the brim with Fire Clansmen…that’s going to be a hard sell if he’s really trying to win their favor.”

She sighs in frustration, making her way to what was once the bar. “If he’s trying to gain the Clan’s favor, this seems like the last place he’d come to, _especially_ if he set the fire. There’s nothing left. I thought maybe there’d be some sign of activity, but the place seems completely abandoned.”

“What I don’t understand is why he’d think setting fire to the place was a good idea at all,” Suki says carefully. “There was already enough chaos as it was, more than enough for him to get away with taking a shot at you, and if he lost the building itself…wouldn’t that mean he’d lose a pretty valuable asset? I mean I have to imagine this wasn’t the first time your Clan used the Boiling Rock to pull of a deal.”

“It was the first time it was used for an Element X delivery, but yes, it was used fairly regularly for cheaper contraband,” Azula says. She crosses her arms, frowning as she casts her gaze around the ruins. “You’re absolutely right that destroying the place would be self-sabotage at best, and just plain suicidal at worst. On the other hand, I have a hard time believing our mystery shooters would go so far as to destroy it, either. Not if they were just there to disrupt the deal. And even if it was about trying to seize control over new territory…” she spreads her arms out demonstratively. “There isn’t much territory left to claim.”

“So, you’re saying setting fire to the Boiling Rock would be pointless to any of the Four Families,” Suki infers. “What about the Red Lotus gang? I remember you referring to them as the anarchists of the organized crime world.”

Azula creases her brow. “It’s possible,” she says. “But I’ve never known them to destroy an entire establishment. It’s almost _too_ chaotic for them. This seems…amateurish. Sloppy. Definitely not done by anyone with any real power.”

Pursing her lips, she runs her hand over what’s left of the wall behind what was once the bar.

“The fire started and spread rapidly,” Suki muses. She looks at Azula. “What if it started here? Behind the bar?”

Azula looks back at her. “That would mean the club’s proprietor would have started it,” she says. “He wouldn’t do that, he lives for this place.”

“Would there have been anyone else back here who could’ve done it?”

Azula shakes her head. “The Yu Yan Archers…but as far as I could tell, when Zhao took the shot at me, they retaliated on my behalf. As far as I’m concerned, they were on my side. Other than them…”

They both jump at a sound from the side street bordering the club. To be precise, a stumble against what sounds like a garbage dump, followed by the sound of violent retching.

Azula and Suki glance at each other, then make their way quickly out to the street.

Sitting half-slumped against the dump is a young man, skinny, dark-clad, the same build as the figure Suki had seen before. A toothpick hangs loosely between his lips.

Before she can voice her recognition to Azula, Azula takes several sharp steps toward the young man, anger radiating off her.

“You son of a bitch,” she hisses, kneeling beside him, and jerking his face up by his chin.

“Azula!” Suki calls to her, sensing a rising violent temper in her and quickly joining her, maybe to support her, maybe to stop her, narrowly avoiding tripping over a ripped paper bag and the splatter of vomit beside the young man. She looks down at him, takes in the glazed look of his dark eyes, the sunkenness of his face, and most notably, the track marks on his left arm.

Suki’s going to go out on a limb and say this man just dosed some badly-cut Element X.

“You know this guy?” she asks Azula.

“I do, in fact,” Azula tells her with a smile that’s mostly snarl. “Suki, meet the Boiling Rock’s bartender. He’s the son of our Element X supplier, the boy who unloaded the shipment, and most importantly, an unaligned little rat with no allegiance to any one Clan.” She pats him harshly on the cheek to keep his attention on her. “More of note, I do believe he’s our amateur firestarter.”

The young man manages the shadow of a dazed smile, vomit still dribbling down his chin.

“Name’s Jet,” he slurs. He points clumsily at Azula. “Didn’t expect to see you again. You’re supposed to be dead.”


	16. Chapter 16

Call Zuko old-fashioned, but he thinks cell phones are a fucking nuisance, and kids these days are way too dependent on the stupid things. They’re loud, they’re annoying, they should be made illegal, just…all cell phones should be illegal.

 _Especially_ cell phones that go off early in the morning while Sokka’s mouth is wrapped around his dick.

After the first surprise jolt of being kicked so violently out of near ecstasy, he groans in frustration, reaching clumsily for his phone with one hand, and pulling Sokka off him with the other.

“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” Sokka growls, sitting back on his heels, and wiping his forearm under his mouth. He huffs out a breath and runs his fingers back through the stray strands of hair that have loosened from his wolftail after all Zuko’s pathetic pulling, and it’s an unfairly good look on him. Everything’s a good look on him, from the messy hair, to the muscles put on such brilliant display by the sunlight coming in through the window…and, fuck’s sake, cell phones should absolutely be made fucking illegal.

Zuko tears his eyes away from him, does his best to tear his thoughts away from the insistent throbbing where Sokka’s mouth was just a second ago, and looks at the screen, trying to gather his senses into some semblance of a proper order. His frustration turns rather suddenly into concern at the name displayed.

“Shit—Suki, hey,” he answers into it, mortified to hear his own voice come out awkwardly husky.

Suki seems to notice the huskiness, because there’s a pause before she starts in with an _“Uh…hey, Zuko.”_

Zuko clears his throat, pinching the bridge of his nose. “What’s, um, what’s going on?” he asks, reminding himself that he told her to call if something was wrong. Unfortunately, he’s rock hard and a little dizzy, and the thought of wrenching his brain out of what was _so fucking close_ and shifting focus not only to problems with Suki, but problems with his _sister,_ for fuck’s sake… “Are you okay?” he adds with a wince, rather than voicing this.

Another awkward pause. _“Actually…you know what, this can wait, we can handle it,”_ Suki says. _“Just realized this might not be the…ideal…time for me to have called you. I clearly wasn’t thinking, I’m sorry. You just go back to your mini vacation. Azula and I have everything handled.”_

And it is so fucking tempting to take her at her word, so fucking tempting to just say fuck it and hang up the phone and let Sokka finish sucking him off and spending the rest of the morning getting even with him because this has been a _night,_ and Sokka has had him out of breath and white-knuckling it for way too fucking long.

Then again, if Suki went so far as to call in the first place…something’s probably really wrong. Just in general, Suki doesn’t ask for help, she takes pride in her own self-sufficiency. If she really made the decision to call him, there’s something worth looking into.

“No, we’re—I’m—it’s fine, just…what’s going on?” he tries again, pressing the heel of his hand into his forehead in embarrassment. Sokka shifts up the mattress to sit by him with a frustrated huff, hand on the back of his neck, kneading absently.

 _“Azula and I may have found the guy responsible for burning down the Boiling Rock,”_ Suki tells him hesitantly. _“And we may have taken him home. And he may have just thrown up all over your couch.”_

Zuko sits up straighter at that, locking eyes with Sokka, whose hand slides to his shoulder instead, cocking his head curiously.

“I’m sorry, _who’s_ on my couch—?” Zuko begins, but Suki cuts him off.

 _“It’s okay though, really, it’s not like he’s going anywhere,”_ she says quickly. _“Azula and I are perfectly capable of handling things until you come home, so you and Sokka just keep doing what you’re doing, and we’ll meet up later. Sorry to bother you.”_

“It’s not _bothering—“_ Zuko waves his hand around, trying to make sense of everything. He leans forward, elbows on his knees. “What do you mean you and Azula ‘found’ the guy who burned down the Boiling Rock? Did he just stumble onto the doorstep and announce ‘hey, I’m the guy you’ve been looking for’ and you just invited him in to chill on the couch, or…?”

_“No, Azula and I were looking around the Boiling Rock to see if we could put any pieces together, and we…found him. Half-passed out against the dumpster outside it.”_

Zuko runs his hand over his mouth, finally dropping his chin onto his knuckles. “And why exactly were you and Azula out of the house at all?” he asks, exasperated.

Suki hesitates, obviously not having meant to let slip that she’d let Azula out.

“Never mind,” Zuko mutters, fingers going to his temple. “We’ll be over soon.”

_“Zuko, really it’s okay, he’s not going anywhere, if you and Sokka want to at least take the morning…”_

If he and Sokka _want_ to take the morning...of course they _want_ to take the morning, Zuko's looking down at himself in humiliated frustration and barely putting two thoughts together at a time. But knowing what he does...he's way too distracted now to just _take the rest of the morning._ Won't be able to turn his stupid brain off enough to enjoy himself, his last few moments of mindless bliss with Sokka snatched away from him at the last fucking second, fucking _cell phones,_ he hates them. One day. One fucking day without a disaster where he could get his brains fucked right out of him by his boyfriend, that's _all_ Zuko wanted.

But no. Because this is the stupid nature of his job, and the stupid situation he's pulled them all into, getting his father arrested, assigning them all to his sister, creating a power imbalance in Republic City's criminal underworld, leading to a shoot-out at a club, and now apparently there's a strange man in his house vomiting on his couch. And Zuko has to be responsible for all of it, even though all he wants is just to be fucked as hard as humanly possible by Sokka without being interrupted for once. Obviously not in the cards anymore, all because of his own dumb stupid decisions. He can literally pinpoint the exact moment from what is now _months_ ago when he decided to help in engineering Ozai's arrest, that has led to this very moment of being forced to drag Sokka's mouth off his dick when he was so fucking close, and that just doesn't seem worth it...

Alright, that's enough, now he's just being horny and dramatic. Reel it in.

“Suki, you just told me the guy we’ve been looking for is on my couch, of course I’m coming home now,” he says finally, quite a bit more gruffly than he means to.

Another uncomfortable silence. “ _Okay, well…in that case…you might want to have Sokka stay behind,”_ Suki says. _“I don’t think he’s gonna be too happy to see who it is.”_

“Are you saying we know this guy?”

_“I mean I’ve never met him till now, but he’s someone you’ve worked with for awhile…and possibly Sokka’s least favorite person in the world.”_

Zuko quickly runs through the list in his brain of everyone Sokka could possibly hate, until he lands on the obvious.

“Oh, fuck,” he mutters.

*

So…Zuko’s getting a little tired of what has become a seemingly endless parade of intoxicated and/or dying people being dumped on his couch. First it was Azula after he picked her up from the bar after Ozai’s arrest. Then it was Suki, bleeding out with enough smoke in her lungs to suffocate.

And now it’s Jet, who has indeed thrown up all over the upholstery, and is now passed out, on what looks like day two of what’s probably going to be a three-day bender of shittily-cut Element X.

Zuko crosses his arms over his chest as he and the girls reconvene in the dining room, regarding Suki and Azula very closely. Suki at least has the decency to look _somewhat_ ashamed; Azula, perched on the edge of the table, does not.

“So who wants to explain to me why you were poking around the Boiling Rock?” Zuko prompts, eyebrows raised high.

“Honestly, Zuzu, we were just trying to be efficient,” Azula says, examining her nails carelessly. “You were off being Boomerang Boy’s little plaything, so Suki and I decided to actually take action instead of relying on others to gather information for us. You could try thanking us.”

Zuko ignores that last remark. “So, what, I leave the two of you alone for a couple hours and you decide to take an evening drive down to the Boiling Rock to play detective?” he asks.

“We didn’t go last night, we went this morning,” Suki says. “Azula and I were here all evening, we spent the night together.” Her eyes go suddenly wide, cutting briefly to Azula before backtracking. “I mean not together. We spent the night in separate rooms, together. We…”

“We went to the Boiling Rock this morning,” Azula says over her, voice smooth as silk, and therefore completely untrustworthy. “I promise I was very well-behaved the entire time, there’s really no need to get your panties all in a twist, Zuzu.”

Zuko frowns at her, ultimately deciding to pick his battles and go with the most relevant matter. “Were you at least able to get any information out of him?” he asks.

“Most of it can be translated into one long senseless gurgle,” Azula admits. “But in between, there were some points of interest. Mainly, he was expecting me to be dead, and then something about a dam breaking, washing away the bad. Then it was more gurgling and rambling. We probably won’t get much sense out of him until tomorrow, maybe even the day after. He’s got a bad strain. If it’s Water, he could be in for a long haul, their brand has a bitch of a half-life. I don’t envy him.”

“You say that like you’ve experienced it.”

“Try not to sound so scandalized, Zuzu, it’s not like I’ve gone on a full-tilt bender like this idiot, but I’ve tried it once or twice. Call it sampling the merchandise.”

Having seen firsthand the way Element X can fuck a person up, Zuko can’t help but flinch at the idea of his sister indulging. That shit is addictive as hell, and a serious mind-fuck when taken in heavy doses. There’s a reason why people refer to dosing it as going on a bender—hell of a lot worse than an alcoholic bender; Element X at its most potent is enough to feel like you’re bending reality, according to former addicts Zuko has worked with. He sincerely hopes that when his sister says she’s dabbled _once or twice,_ she means it.

“In any case,” Azula continues, “Jet’s going to be largely useless to us for the next 24 hours at least. Keep pumping him full of fluids, it might get it out of his system faster.” She taps her lips thoughtfully. “What about the girl? The one you had when Suki was shot?”

“Katara?” Zuko asks.

“Her, yes. Call her up. She might be useful in getting him more coherent faster.”

Zuko tightens his shoulders. “No, I don’t think she should be around Jet,” he says firmly. “They sort of used to date. He was…a dick, to put it mildly.”

“And yet you’ve been working with him?”

“He’s a useful contact,” Zuko says defensively. “He’s got his hands in everything, there isn’t anyone in this city with anywhere near his spiderweb of connections.”

“Zuko, Azula does have a point,” Suki puts in. “We could use Katara’s help, at least for an evaluation. She’s like the epitome of professional. If anyone can handle Jet, she can. She wouldn’t get caught up in past romantic drama. She’s not like Sokka.”

Zuko takes in her apologetic smile. She isn’t wrong. Of the two siblings, Katara is certainly more cool-headed, generally speaking. But he’s also seen Katara go into rage mode a couple times and it’s…intense. Still. When it comes to upholding the…what’s it…Hippocratic Oath…Katara’s about as golden of a girl as a person can get.

“I’ll put in a call,” he concedes.

“Good,” Suki says. “Speaking of Sokka…how’d you convince him not to come here with you?”

“I told him the truth,” Zuko says.

“Really?”

“Really. And then he…I mean, you know him, he got all puffed up…”

Suki laughs. “He does get puffed up,” she agrees with a smile. “That dumbass. It’s fucking adorable, but…really, Sokka.”

Zuko smiles back, glad to have reached a point with her that they can both lovingly pick on Sokka together.

Azula, on the other hand, looks ruffled by Suki’s fond laugh, flinching like someone just flicked ice cold water on her.

Zuko watches the shift in her mood, but as soon as she notices his attention, she falls back into carelessness, reexamining her nails like they’re the most fascinating things in the world. They’re clipped short, unpolished, and uncolored—he has no idea what she could _possibly_ find interesting about them.

“Anyway, after I told him that punching the lights out of the only lead we’ve got would be a bad idea…he finally agreed to let me handle this particular situation,” he finishes.

“Incredible. Some common sense for once,” Azula drawls.

Both Zuko and Suki give her a look, but Azula has returned her attention, once more, to her nails.

“So I guess until Jet comes down from his high…we just wait?” Suki says after a moment.

“Looks like it,” Zuko says. “If you wanna go meet up with Sokka, Azula and I can hold down the fort here, keep an eye on Jet. I’ll call Katara, get her over once her shift starts.”

“Or I could stay,” Suki offers. “I mean…it might be better if we’re all together.”

“It’ll mostly be watching a sleeping idiot,” Zuko points out.

“I could keep watch with you overnight.”

“I don’t know where you’d sleep. Jet’s got the couch…I guess that means Azula can take the guest room…speaking of, I should probably change the sheets…”

“I’ll do it,” Suki says quickly.

Zuko’s eyebrows raise in surprise. “…Okay?”

“I should’ve changed them in the first place,” Suki adds. She looks at Azula, head tilted, lips tugging into a curious slant. “Azula, do you want…?”

“You left some of your clothes from when you were staying here before,” Azula puts in, getting to her feet. “I’ll help you pack those up.”

“Great,” Suki says, and it’s a little breathy, and she has this very odd, winsome smile Zuko doesn’t think he’s ever seen on her before. The two of them make rather quickly for the guest room.

“Guess I’ll…call Katara,” Zuko mutters, a little baffled by their behavior.

He gets her voicemail—not surprising, Katara takes her days off very seriously, and if Aang is off at the same time, they usually spend the day together.

He calls Sokka directly after, assuring him that Jet is harmless, and that yes, he looks just as stupid and buttface-ish (Sokka’s words) as he remembers.

Sokka puts him on hold as he searches for the map of Republic City's drainage system per Zuko's request, and as the hold muzak plays, Zuko looks up to see that Suki and Azula have reemerged from the guest room and are moseying to the front door. He tilts his head curiously. Could’ve sworn Azula said she was going to help Suki pack up some of the things she left from when she was staying here, but Suki doesn’t seem to be carrying anything.

He creases his brow, watching as Azula twists sideways, like she’s showing Suki something on her shoulder. He catches the last few words of what she’s saying—“from last night”—and isn’t quite able to believe his eyes or ears when Suki playfully hip-checks her and says the words, “Well that’s what you get for being such a smug bitch all the time—a torn-up back.”

By the time Sokka finally resurfaces on the call with the plans Zuko’s looking for, and the two of them hang up, Suki is gone, and Azula is making herself comfortable in the love seat across from the couch, browsing through the entertainment section of the Republic City Tribune.

Zuko peeks in the door of the guest room, frowning when he sees that the bed is still made, but there’s no evidence of the sheets having been taken off or replaced. The covers are simply…sort of crumpled in the middle.

“I thought the two of you were gonna change the sheets?” he asks Azula, leaning back toward the living room pointedly.

Azula spares him an annoyed shrug before returning her attention to the paper. “I’ll get to it,” she says lightly.

*

As Azula predicted, Jet is pretty much out of commission for the entire day. Katara, exasperated beyond belief, does stop by to take his vitals, and refrains from murdering him, which Zuko thinks is very big of her. She reiterates that upping his fluid intake will get the Element X out of his system faster, if balanced by some mild caloric intake, but that of course, requires waking the dumbass up every hour or so to force Katara's provided solution down his throat. He stumbles back and forth from the bathroom to the living room, sometimes managing to return to the couch to sleep, other times simply sinking back onto the tile in the bathroom and nodding off there.

“If he pisses anywhere other than the fucking toilet bowl, I’ll have to call Sokka over to deal with him,” Zuko says offhandedly to Azula, sort of serious, but mostly just trying to get her to laugh, or at least acknowledge him.

She deigns to give him a short grunt he thinks is close-ish to a laugh, and even has somewhat of an upward pull at her lips.

“He can take the first shot,” she says, “but I call dibs on finishing him off.”

Zuko blinks in surprise, unable to help but feel a little burst of hope tug at him. It’s going on three weeks of Azula staying with him, and for the most part, she does little to engage with him unless it’s to do with tracking down the people responsible for the various attacks, or to tell him to pass the pepper at the table. And even when she _does_ engage, it’s usually with an edge, or an eye roll, or something else designed to remind him she doesn’t appreciate her current situation. The few times they’ve dabbled with having an actual conversation, it jumpstarted an argument about how Ursa always loved Zuko best, which, after blowing up, resulted in a several days-long chill between them. Their best and easiest conversations have been about the weather, and where to get takeout for dinner.

So to have Azula actually say a full sentence, one that’s sort of in agreement with him, and is on the lighter side, even if it does include thoughts of eventual violence…it’s a good feeling.

“Deal,” Zuko says.

Azula looks at him warily, the sort-of-almost-half-ish-type smile seeming on the precipice of either becoming a fuller smile, or disappearing into a frown because there isn’t supposed to be anything lighthearted between them, not even a one-syllable word. That would go against everything Ozai taught her.

“So, uh,” Zuko begins, casting around for something that will keep the conversation going. Not much comes to mind, and he finally settles disappointedly on, “Where do you wanna order dinner from?”

She lifts an eyebrow. “Zuko, it’s noon.”

“Yeah, I know, I’m just…thinking ahead.”

Azula looks around them, eyes catching on the trash overflowing with takeout boxes. “You know if you actually stocked your kitchen with real food from time to time, I could cook something substantial one of these nights,” she says.

Zuko is so startled by the offer he’s unable to come up with a response for an uncomfortably long time. “You, uh, you still cook?” he asks finally.

“As if that’s such a shock to you,” Azula says.

He cocks his head in puzzlement.

“Suki mentioned you’ve been keeping tabs on me over the years,” she clarifies.

“Oh. No, not me,” Zuko says. “I’ve had other people…keeping on eye on you. And telling me. Just what you’re up to and, y’know. That.”

“Wow. That’s somehow _way_ more disturbing,” Azula says. “You just had strangers tracking my movements?”

“No, nothing like that,” Zuko hurries to explain. “Just, occasionally I had people look into how you were doing. Mostly just through rumors, contacts I had that could get in touch with lower-downs in the Fire Clan. And…well, you know Mai and I dated for awhile…”

Azula tightens her jaw, and Zuko can see memories of old minor betrayals playing in the back of her mind.

“Mostly we didn’t talk about you,” Zuko adds quickly. “I mean it didn’t last long anyway, for…obvious reasons. But sometimes I asked about you, and she told me, just as disinterestedly as a person could possibly get. But like I said, it was short-lived. The rest was just…rumors from contacts. It’s not like I was having someone spy on you, I was just having them check in. Distantly.”

“Of course, distantly,” Azula says coldly. “You wouldn’t want to have to see me yourself.”

“I mean yeah, I didn’t want to see you,” Zuko answers honestly. “Especially in the beginning. But I wanted to make sure, on some level, that you were okay.”

Azula looks him over, taking her time, reading him. “You know if you hadn’t abandoned us, you wouldn’t have needed go to all that effort,” she tells him.

Zuko looks down, feeling his jaw clench. That’s a few times now that she’s referred to him leaving as _abandoning_ them. It’s not that simple, not by a long shot, and he has to believe she knows that, but it’s also not a subject he really dares broach when whatever civility they have between them is so fragile.

“Well, if I hadn’t had people digging up dirt on you, I wouldn’t’ve met Jet over there,” Zuko replies finally, jerking his chin toward the half-asleep moron on the couch.

“That useless lump of shit sprawled on the furniture was one of the people you had keeping tabs on me?” Azula demands, eyebrows raising high.

Zuko nods with a thin smile. “Sure is.”

“And then he set a Fire Clan establishment on fire, and brought us back together,” Azula says. She rolls her eyes. “Well, I guess as long as everything comes full-circle…”

Zuko huffs out a cautious laugh. Another long moment of silence stretches between them before Zuko finally asks, “Do you want a drink?”

Azula raises an eyebrow. “I mentioned it’s noon, didn’t I? You don’t strike me as a day drinker.”

“Five o’clock somewhere,” he replies, cringing a little at the cliche. Wants to ban cell phones and uses phrases like _five o’clock somewhere._ It’s official. He’s a solid five decades older than his actual age.

“We can drink and play pai sho in between force-hydrating Jet and trying to get him to sober up,” he adds, as if the situation makes it somehow…cooler? “It’s better than just hanging around in silence.”

Azula regards him for a moment, then shrugs one shoulder up. “Just as long as you have something other than cheap beer, it’s the only spare amount of alcohol I’ve been able to get my hands on ever since you abducted me.”

“It’s all I’ve got.”

Azula lets out a long huff of annoyance. “Fuck it,” she says. “Why not.”

And so it happens that Zuko actually finds himself spending some time with Azula in a way that isn’t icy, or rigged with boobytraps, or just plain threatens to become violent. There is a close call with the pai sho game, when Azula loses and looks about ready to set fire to the house, but fortunately Jet chooses that moment to wake and makes the most awkward hop-scamper toward the bathroom, and the schadenfreude of it is good enough to ease both their tempers.

Awkward silence does eventually return, though, somewhere between beer number two and beer number three. Not wanting to lose whatever scraps of companionship he’s finally gotten with her, Zuko sifts through every possible topic of conversation, and blurts out the first one that comes to his head.

“So,” he begins, clearing his throat. “You and Suki seem to be getting along pretty well.”

He immediately regrets that being the first thing he could come up with. Azula’s eyes narrow distrustfully, walls coming up so fast Zuko feels like he’s been shoved several feet backwards toward a cliff.

“What’s _that_ supposed to mean?” Azula asks, voice stiff.

“Just that you…seem to be getting along pretty well,” Zuko reiterates a bit lamely. “It’s a good thing. Y’know. That you’re making new friends.”

“Who says I’m making friends with anyone?”

“No one, nothing. Just that if you _are_ making friends…Suki’s a good friend to have.” He scratches awkwardly at the back of his neck. “She’s a good person. She’s kind, and loyal, and—and funny, and she’s sweet, and brave, and smart, and a total badass, really just all around great person.”

Azula continues to frown suspiciously at him. “Is there a reason you’re singing her praises to me? Apropos of nothing?”

“No, I just…”

Zuko isn’t sure how to phrase this one. He’s almost certain of what he saw, almost certain that Azula’s connection with Suki goes beyond her more typical casual attachment. Now that he’s really thinking about it, he remembers seeing the way Azula trailed after Suki like a lost puppy while Suki was staying with them after having been shot. He remembers how snarky and irritated she would be with him while they were running through theories about the Boiling Rock together, and how her mood would instantly seem to lift if Suki entered the room. He remembers her jab at Sokka, what she claimed was just trying to get under his skin, mentioning something about kissing Suki.

Most recently, that playful hip check from earlier, the fact that Suki actually called Azula a “smug bitch” and earned herself one of Azula’s very rare spills of laughter instead of getting her throat ripped out.

Not to mention the fact that if they were really talking about Azula having a “torn-up back”…on second thought, that part, Zuko would prefer not to think about. But unless he’s completely delusional, he thinks the two of them might have sort of a… _thing…_ going on between them. And Suki, who—as Sokka has stated multiple times—is maybe the best girl in the world, might actually be a solid person for her to be with.

To Zuko’s knowledge, the closest Azula has ever come to having what some people might describe as an actual relationship was her on-again-off-again thing with Ty Lee. But that was different. He honestly believes Azula treasured her—even when they were kids, she had this tendency to look at Ty Lee like she hung the moon. But her friendship with Ty Lee got twisted up in Ozai’s growing expectations of Azula, damaged all the more by the way he crippled her ability to let her guard down.

In some ways, Zuko thinks Azula and Ty Lee could have been wonderful together. Granted, he only knew Ty Lee when they were much younger, and half the time, she just got on his nerves. _Constantly_ yammering on and on about just the dumbest shit, something about auras and psychic energies and whatever the fuck else…not to mention the needless acrobatics she’d just… _do…_ Zuko considers himself pretty flexible, but Ty Lee was just plain…whatever. No, for the most part, he found her just plain irritating. But even then, he noticed that around Ty Lee, Azula softened, and that was a truly remarkable feat.

Unfortunately, Zuko thinks, that meant that in the midst of Ozai’s manipulation and shaping of Azula, she probably began to see Ty Lee not just as a friend, or a first love, but also as a weakness, and therefore something that needed to be controlled, or, failing that, destroyed. Zuko is intimately familiar with Ozai’s methods of manipulation, managed to get out before things took root too deeply. But for Azula…she sure as fuck wasn’t so lucky. She was the fucking apple of their father’s eye, and that made anything she loved a prime target for him, and eventually her. And given that any idiot could see that Ty Lee was Azula’s kryptonite, Zuko thinks Azula probably learned to fear the consequences of Ty Lee as much as she loved her. Anything deeper that could have happened between them was poisoned before it could ever really come to any fruition. Zuko thinks Azula became comfortable in the poisoning, found it safer there.

…Zuko may have been seeing a therapist for some time a while back, and did some _very_ intense analyzing of his childhood, his daddy issues, his sister issues, his…everything issues…just all his issues. Analyzed the hell out of each and every one of them.

He thinks he’s right though, about Azula, and her precarious friendship with Ty Lee. Seeing her in the market just a few months before Ozai’s arrest, holding Ty Lee’s hand…Zuko really had thought for a moment that she’d gotten out. He’d believed at the time that if anyone could get her out of the nightmare that was Ozai Sozin’s world, it would be Ty Lee.

Now he’s not so sure. From what he remembers, and from what Mai told him over the years, Azula is too wary of Ty Lee, too self-conscious about her attachment to her and the weakness it exposed in her. Her nature is to protect herself at whatever cost, and there’s a fundamental distrust built into her feelings toward Ty Lee, put there by Ozai, one that Zuko isn’t sure Azula would ever be able to fully get past. If Ty Lee were to draw Azula out, Azula might shatter.

Suki, though. Suki’s different. She doesn’t seem to bring out quite the same softness in Azula that Ty Lee did—the two of them actually seem to butt heads more often than not, he can tell she pushes back, keeps Azula on her toes. Suki seems to have no issue calling Azula on her shit. But she’s also patient with her. Seems to see through her bullshit and remains willing to be at her side.

Not to mention, she got to know Azula as an adult, not during those horrible formative years when Ozai’s influence on her was at its most detrimental, when his twisting of the meaning of human connection was at its peak.

If, out of all this, Azula might have a fighting chance at having any kind of normal relationship with someone…regardless of the nature of that relationship…Zuko can’t think of anyone better than Suki.

“Was the question too difficult?” Azula prompts, and he realizes he’s been trying to form all that into something he might actually be able to say to his sister.

“I just want you to be happy, that’s all,” he settles on awkwardly.

Her gaze on him is steady, measured, and just a little cold. “Oh you know me, Zuzu,” she says. “I’m always happy.”

“Who wants to watch me ride this sick-ass magic panda?” Jet interjects from the hallway, staring at some distant…magic panda…Zuko guesses.

Azula shifts her gaze from Zuko to him and sits back comfortably, eyebrows lifted, and amused smirk perfectly—almost too perfectly—in place. “All eyes on you, baby,” she tells Jet. “Go for it.”

Jet continues to stare into the distance for several seconds, arms wiggling back and forth, a dopey smile on his face. Then he snaps to attention, gazing at them with an expression of wonder. “Did you see that, that was fucking _insane!”_ he gasps. “What a fucking ride.”

The color suddenly drains from his cheeks and he leans back against the wall with a groan. “Fuck. Think I’m gonna puke again.”

Azula looks at Zuko with a shrug. “That’s what happens when you ride the magic panda,” she says.

Zuko laughs, then quickly scrambles to push Jet toward the bathroom as that dumb son of a bitch starts to dry heave again.


	17. Chapter 17

Azula suggests torture as a means of getting Jet to talk the following afternoon when it looks like he’s finally starting to come down from what was likely the bender of all benders.

She’s more than a bit miffed to learn that, out of all her brother’s people, _Sokka_ is the only one to agree with her. Granted, it’s a watered-down version of torture that mostly translates into beating the information out of him like some barbarian, but it’s a little too close to her own thoughts for comfort.

Zuko firmly but somewhat carelessly brushes both their suggestions aside, like he expected both, and is only mildly annoyed by them.

Sokka, who seems to hate that he and Azula had the same idea just as much Azula does, crosses his arms and says, “I was only kidding. I’m not a monster.”

And Azula retorts, “I was also kidding. There are obviously much more efficient ways of getting information out of someone. That was a test.”

The two of them take a moment to glare at each other, and Azula marks down his scowl, and his stupid face, and can’t believe Suki was once enamored with him.

Suki suggests simply asking Jet pointblank what they want to know first, and not hitting him unless he proves difficult for a long enough time.

Katara agrees with her.

A blind woman who is small, yet still somehow built like a rock, is mostly in line with Katara and Suki, but suggests getting him drunk first, partially because it might loosen his tongue a bit, and partially because it seems like it could be funny. Her name is Toph, and Azula thinks she might like her best out of the group, relatively speaking.

Katara says they are absolutely not going to ply him with alcohol after he’s just come down from a bad strain of Element X, her reasoning being that he might simply die on them.

Fair enough.

Aang, a bald, youthful-faced man who Azula learns is Zuko’s better half in their business, is in line with Suki and Katara when it comes to the more peaceful initial approach, but absolutely nixes the idea of harming Jet in any way, regardless of whether he’s cooperative or not.

“That’s not what Avatar Security is about,” he says. “We don’t bully people into doing what we want. If we do that, we’re no better than the people we’re trying to stop.”

The others look chastised by this comment; Azula isn’t sure how else he expects to get anything done.

“If torture’s off the table, we could simply threaten the people Jet treasures in exchange for information,” she suggests.

“That’s…worse,” Zuko tells her with a frown. “You do see how that’s worse, right?”

Azula looks at him blankly.

“Just imagine, if there was someone you cared about, somewhere in the world, or…in this room…” Zuko says, and Azula frowns at him. “If someone came along and threatened one of those people you cared about, would that make you want to comply with them? Or would you just lash out, knowing they’ve been unfairly brought into a dangerous situation?”

“It would be a sort of mental torture,” Aang agrees. “And it puts innocent people who have nothing to do with the situation in harm’s way.”

“I didn’t say _harm them,_ I said _threaten them,”_ Azula snaps. “No one comes to any actual harm, I’m playing by your rules here.”

“It’s a moot point anyway,” Katara pipes up. “Jet doesn’t care about anyone but himself.”

“Which is why we should threaten _him,”_ both Azula and Sokka say at the same time.

Azula sends Sokka the most violent look she can, before crossing her arms and looking disinterestedly at the wall.

She and Sokka are _not_ the same, she reminds herself. Sokka’s more aggressive feelings about what they should do about Jet come from a place of protectiveness for his sister. Azula’s feelings about what they should do—far more pragmatically—come from the fact that Jet was somehow instrumental in the attack on the Boiling Rock. She’s practical, Sokka’s emotional. The fact that they share this one idealized course of action in common, is simply a one-off. The only other thing they share in common is Suki.

Oh, Azula doesn’t like that thought. _Very_ much wishes she hadn’t just thought it. _Very_ much hates the fact that she can’t stand the idea of anyone else getting their hands on every inch of Suki the way she has.

She comforts herself in the knowledge that, of course, _no one_ has ever fucked Suki the way she has, so it’s really alright.

“Aang’s right—we should be taking violence completely off the table,” Zuko says, though Azula thinks she can hear just an _ounce_ of stiffness in his voice, one that suggests that although he _wouldn’t_ hurt Jet, he’d sort of like to. He’s clinging to self-restraint these days, but she’s sure there’s at least some small spark of that Sozin fire in his blood. He may have abandoned the family, but there are some things a person can never quite shake.

In the end, there’s no reason for all their bickering over how best to get Jet to talk; Jet just talks.

“Yeah, I did it,” he spits from the chair Sokka has ductaped him to, chin lifted proudly, fire in his eyes.

Oh so he’s going to be one of _those,_ Azula thinks with a roll of her eyes. Self-righteous, proud, probably thinks what he did was somehow _noble…_

“Why?” Katara demands. There’s too much emotion in her voice, and Azula cringes. Does no one else here understand the subtleties of interrogation?

Apparently not, because Jet feeds right into Katara’s furious demand with a snarling, “Because no one else in this city is willing to do what it takes! The Four Families have Republic City by the balls, they’ve got their hands all over every business, every institution, trade…schools, even! And no one’s doing jack shit about it.”

“So you decided to set a bar on _fire?”_ Katara exclaims. “People _died_ there, Jet! Innocent people!”

Jet frowns, face shadowed. “It was a necessary sacrifice,” he says. “That’s the price of ridding this area of the Four Families.”

“Perhaps I’m missing something,” Azula speaks up. “How exactly was setting a bar on fire meant to ‘rid the area’ of the Clans’ influence? Certainly it’s created a mess for the Fire Clan to clean up, but I assure you the other Three are hardly bothered by the loss of a Fire Clan establishment.”

“Shows how much you know,” he scoffs, and Azula is back to thinking torture might be a good idea, just for the hell of it. “Anyone have a cigarette?” Jet adds.

“No one’s smoking in my house,” Zuko says, but fishes out the box of toothpicks they removed from Jet’s pockets upon first getting him to the couch. He holds one out to Jet, who looks annoyed, but clamps the thing between his lips anyway, seeming a bit relieved to have it, despite himself.

Azula considers making a remark about his oral fixation, but decides better of it.

“Sort of thought _you’d_ get it at least,” Jet says to Zuko. “You know every bad thing that goes bump in the night in Republic City stems from the hold the Four Families has on it. You know that every slimy politician, every sleazy business mogul, every rich-up-their-ass criminal that gets off scot-free is because they’re paying tribute to one of the Four Families. Every person your security gang takes care of has been victimized by the Four Families, even if it’s indirect. But while you’re sitting by being reactive instead of taking action yourself, shit just gets worse and worse. If you really wanted to keep people safe, you’d go on the offensive. You’d take the whole system down in one go. Let the dam break. Wash them all away.”

“I’m sorry, are you trying to tell us you decided to single-handedly take down all Four Families at once?” Azula laughs.

“You know how easy it is to plant the right seeds in the right people’s heads?” Jet fires back. “All I had to do was pull the right strings and watch you all destroy yourselves.” He flips the toothpick between his teeth with his tongue, frowning. “That was the plan anyway. You weren’t supposed to get out. How the hell did you get out?”

Azula glances at Suki, the two of them sharing a look. Azula rescued Suki from the flames, sure, but not before Suki shoved her out of the line of gunfire. She’s quite possibly the only reason Azula’s still standing here.

And vice versa, she tells herself stubbornly. It’s not like Suki’s the _only_ hero here.

“Doesn’t matter,” Jet mutters, seemingly more to himself. He lifts his gaze back up to Zuko. The one person in the room who he knows he has _somewhat_ of a connection with. “You should’ve known how this was all gonna go down. Thought you of all people would understand the demands of war.”

“This isn’t about war, Jet, never was,” Zuko tells him. “This was about protecting people who couldn’t protect themselves. You crossed a line.”

“I didn’t cross shit, shit crossed me,” Jet spits. “Fire Clan stole your family away from you, didn’t it? Well it stole mine, too.”

“Your father is literally a supplier of Element X to my Clan,” Azula points out in a drawl.

“The scumbag who raised me isn’t my father,” Jet says. “Fire Clan killed my real father and mother when I was eight. I found who I needed to in order to survive, and that meant a lowlife thug with a gift for mixing, and enough connections to get him in bed with people that mattered. He didn’t just supply your people with Element X, he produced it, right from the source. And that’s what you ordered that night, isn’t it. Or what your father did, anyway. Not a big shipment. Just the beginnings of a strain to make your own.”

Azula purses her lips. “Well well,” she says. “Aren’t you smarter than you look.”

“I’m not sure _smart’s_ the word I’d use for him,” Sokka growls.

“I live with my fucking ear to the ground,” Jet tells them. “There isn’t a deal that goes down in this city without my knowing about it. Ozai got clumsy when he purchased the power plant by the docks—information I gave you, Zuko, and you used it to turn him over. He was trying to set up a production site in the underground floor beneath the power plant. The business done up top was a front. Isn’t that right?”

Azula laughs, mostly because she can’t believe this slimy little rat was able to put so much of it together. All through connections he has through the lowest of the low haunting Republic City’s streets.

She realizes the close-knit Avatar Security family is looking at her for verification, and she shakes her head a little disbelievingly.

“It is,” she confirms. “Purchasing the power plant included the bundle deal of a handful of other buildings around the city, several of them formerly controlled by the Earth Clan. Long Feng has always had a tight grip on the city’s construction companies, and my father discovered they tended to transport their more valuable contraband through tunnels built beneath the city.” She gestures toward Suki. “Much like the way I told you the Water Clan transports theirs through the drainage systems. Ozai’s MO—or perhaps a better word would be obsession—for the last several years has been complete domination of the Element X market. As dear Jet says, Ozai wanted control over every step of the process, from production, to branding, to transport, to distribution…he wanted every penny to be funneled right back into the Fire Clan. Full monopoly.”

“The scumbag who calls himself my father referred to what he was selling you—or was going to sell your father—as a sort of ‘mother dough’ of Element X, unprocessed, un-fucked with, primed to create whatever strain you wanted,” Jet adds.

“Okay, but there have to be dozens of other mixers in Republic City,” Suki pipes up. “Just because Ozai planned to have his hands on _a_ mother dough, and even the main transportation of other Clans, that wouldn’t completely wipe out the competition. Other people could still produce it.”

“Not if they were destroyed,” Jet tells her. They all look back to Azula.

“The plan,” Azula says slowly, “was to purchase every known production site across the Four Families, seize control of every transportation route, and recruit every mixer for the Fire Clan. And if they couldn’t be recruited…”

“…Kill them,” Suki finishes for her, and Azula’s eyes fly to her. She’s stone-faced, and Azula wants to say _No, I would never,_ because she can’t stand to see that look, like Azula somehow betrayed her.

“That was my father’s plan,” she says instead, voice firm.

“Which brings us to the Boiling Rock,” Jet says. “The other Clans knew the Phoenix Kingpin was up to something big—property was being bought up all over the place, and they’ve all got eyes and ears everywhere, snatching up little bits of information. None as good as me, but hey. So when Ozai was arrested, and you vanished, they were all left hanging. _You_ were the big question mark. No one knew whether you just got out of Dodge not wanting to be part of it, or if you were gonna follow in his footsteps. So when you returned, and the other Clans got wind of it, all eyes were on you.”

“And how exactly did they get wind of my return? That was awfully quick.”

“Whispered words from yours truly,” Jet tells her. “I told you, you plant the right seeds in the rightpeople’s heads…anyway, with Zhao stepping in, it was pretty easy to keep track of him. He’s got tunnel-vision, and he was living it up thinking he’d just made it as the new Phoenix Kingpin. He got careless. I learned the deal was going down at the Boiling Rock—I knew it within days of Zhao puttering around trying to pull off what he thought were some of your dad’s loose-end ventures. He didn’t have a _clue_ as to Ozai’s bigger aspirations—but you did. So all eyes were on you, and what you chose to do when you got back.

“I tipped off a useful Dai Li agent that a big Fire Clan deal was going down at the Boiling Rock— _the_ plan that got Ozai arrested,” Jet continues, tonguing at his toothpick in a way that makes Azula want to smack him. “No one knew the specifics of what the deal was, only knew it was bigger and more expensive and wide-reaching than what any of them had ever attempted. The fact that the deal was back on intrigued the hell out of my Dai Li stooge, and he brought word directly to Long Feng. I let a contact in the Water Clan in on it, made sure to meet him in Air Clan territory, so he was overheard by Shoken’s people as well. Timing was everything. Had to get them all in the Boiling Rock at the same time, watch them destroy each other from the inside.

“I knew Long Feng would come on strong,” Jet continues. “He’s always been the Fire Clan’s biggest threat, and he seemed to hate Ozai on a personal level—matter of fact,” he pauses, looking at Azula with a shadowed smile, “he seemed to hate _you_ on a personal level too. I’m sure there’s an interesting story in there.”

Azula feels fire erupt inside her, ready to lunge for this idiot’s throat. Before she can even budge, though, she feels Zuko’s hand on her shoulder. It’s not restraining, it’s…reassuring…or comforting…in a way. It makes some unknown emotion well up in her chest, just enough to quell the fire. Confusion. Confusion is the unknown emotion.

“Anyway, he did come on strong, like I thought he would,” Jet goes on. He frowns. “But not strong enough. He sent the Dai Li to the Boiling Rock and they began firing at you and your men. Long Feng himself stayed back, let his goons do the dirty work. Same for the other Clans. I thought sure Hama and Shoken would show. But it was all just low level thugs. Didn’t find out till later the Air Clan didn’t show at the Boiling Rock at all, they had an ambush set outside, rendered pretty much useless in the chaos.

“The real fucking maraschino cherry on top, though,” Jet adds, “was supposed to be the Red Lotus gang. They don’t give a shit about controlling the market—they _hate_ the political BS of the Four Families. So I tipped them off, too. They came with the more serious ammo. Not with a target, not so much trying to kill people, just trying to destroy the establishment itself, going for chaos as a means to upend Ozai’s domination of the market, rather than a direct attack. Fucking cowards. Them and the other Three Founders. Wouldn’t even show up for the deal themselves, all sending underlings to do their dirty work.”

“That’s not surprising,” Azula says. “My father was uncommonly hands-on with his business for a Clan Boss. He handled the bigger deals himself. He didn’t cower behind his goons like the others do.”

“The whole thing was a fucking wash,” Jet says, scowling. “Low level, expendable, disposable underlings. But I’d made a promise to myself to do as much damage to those fucks as possible. Break the dam, wash away the bad. I had to make sure that whatever grunts I _could_ take out, I did. So I set the fire, kept them trapped in the middle of a senseless shootout. Kept _you_ trapped,” he adds, cutting his gaze over to Azula. “You were supposed to be my one victory in that shitshow when all hell broke loose.” He laughs ruefully. “Figures the heir to the Fire Clan would survive an actual fire. Probably should’ve expected that.”

“And sixteen other people _didn’t_ survive,” Katara says darkly. “Sixteen people who, for all we know, had nothing to do with the Clans, just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Jet looks at her steadily. “The dam had to break, Katara,” he tells her, voice quiet. “That’s how wars have always been won. Sacrifices have to be made. It may not have been the complete victory I wanted, but I chipped away at Fire and Earth Clans, more than anyone else has for years. That fire was…it was a good thing. It cleansed that whole area of bad.”

“I’m sorry, are we going with a dam metaphor, or a cleansing fire metaphor?” Azula can’t help but drawl, feeling annoyance coming off her like electricity.

“We’re going with a fuck you and the whole Clan business metaphor,” Jet snaps. He turns his attention to the others. “I don’t care if the rest of you don’t like my methods—this was a victory. At least I’m fucking _doing_ something about these people. Meanwhile, you’re _harboring_ one of them, you’re really keeping the heir to the fucking Fire Clan safe and warm and cuddly, when in reality, that bitch’ll turn on you in a second. You think she’s your sister, your friend? She’s a fucking viper, and when she shows her true colors, you’ve got no one to blame but yourselves.”

Azula feels rooted to the spot, not sure why that strikes as hard as it does, enough to make her freeze up. She should be on her feet, strangling that rat.

Instead, it’s Suki who gets to her feet, marching over to Jet and slapping him hard across the face. The crack of her hand hitting his cheek seems to echo, and it might be the most gratifying sound Azula has heard in a long time.

Sokka gives a surprised laugh. “Holy shit, Suki, that was awesome.”

Azula looks up as Suki turns on her heel, feeling a fond warmth in her chest.

“Suki…” she starts, but Suki strides past her, ignoring her, face dark and tempestuous. Azula turns in confusion, watching as she disappears through the front door, slamming it behind her.

“Is she okay?” Katara asks.

“I’m sure she’s just riled up, give her a minute,” Sokka says. “Shit, I’ve been wanting to do that for _years.”_

Azula looks out the window, watching as Suki gets in her car and drives off. Around her, she can hear the others continuing to question Jet— _So where is Zhao now? Is he still trying to enact Ozai’s grander plans? Does he know Azula is still alive? Is she still in danger?_

Jet’s answer to each— _Here and there, yes, yes, and yes—_ are muted in Azula’s mind. She gets to her feet as they continue to talk, to speculate about his next steps, about how they can quell the rising tide of violence, how they can keep Azula safe, get the target off her back so she can live happily ever after with her brother, everything all tied up with a nice little bow.

She makes her way quietly over to the front door, glancing back at the group to see their focus unwaveringly on the rest of what Jet is saying. Only Zuko looks up to see that she’s missing.

When he sees where she’s headed, he mouths, “Go ahead,” and turns his attention back to the others.

Azula doesn’t need his blessing, but she welcomes it anyway, slipping his car keys off the key rack and making her way outside to follow Suki home.

*

There’s a delay from the time Azula knocks on her door, to Suki actually opening it for her. Almost too long of a delay.

When Suki does finally open up, that tempestuous look is gone, but she looks angry still, even hurt, and Azula isn’t sure what to say.

Suki saves her the effort, opening the door wider and standing aside so she can come in. Azula follows her lead uncertainly, closing the door behind herself. Suki leans against the counter, cupping a mug of coffee between her hands. Azula hovers a little awkwardly beside the couch, trying to put a name to the energy radiating off Suki, the darker mood swirling around her.

“So that was pretty satisfying back there,” Azula offers, forcing her lips into a smirk. “Look at you, defending my honor.”

“I wasn’t defending your honor,” Suki says.

And Azula knows that. She hesitates, not knowing whether she should be putting walls up or not. She stays quiet, waiting for Suki to explain.

It takes a moment. Suki seems to be trying to read her just as much as she’s trying to read Suki.

Finally Suki says, “Sometimes I forget who you are.”

And that hurts for some reason. Isn’t what Azula was expecting to hear.

“I’ve been forgetting more and more, actually,” Suki continues. “But there’s always that tiny little voice, way in the back of my head, saying _exactly_ what Jet did about you. I hit him because I knew he was wrong about you—and then I realized, really, I didn’t know that at all. It’s something I forget sometimes. The more I’m around you, the more I forget, but it’s always back there somewhere: is something going to happen today that causes her to betray us? Is this the moment she turns on us? Is this the thing that makes her decide we’re not worth it? Is this the part where she throws the rest of us aside and reveals that every single thing she’s done since meeting us has been to claw her way back, to take up her title as heir to the Fire Clan? Is this the way she gets us to let our guard down?”

She’s clinging to the word _us,_ like she needs it to be a betrayal to her Avatar Security friends, and not to her personally.

“Hearing Jet say all those things…it just reminded me of how we started,” Suki continues. “Reminded me that you want so badly to be him—to be Ozai. So to hear you recite his plan so perfectly, the ways he planned to manipulate the market, the fact that he would happily murder anyone who refused to be recruited by him…you’ve always wanted to be just like him, so badly it seems to ache in you. I like you—fuck, I do, I like you, and because of that, I’ve skirted around this question, tried not to let myself even think it, but I have to know: he’s killed innocent people, simply for defying him. Have you?”

Azula feels her hands growing just the slightest bit shaky, and wills them to stop, not speaking until they do. “No,” she answers.

Suki shakes her head. “I want to believe you.”

“I haven’t, and I wouldn’t,” Azula insists, hating the urgency in her own voice. “Brute force was his way, but it’s never been necessary. The Clan can be sustained through trade alone. The will of the Clan can be enforced without the kind of bloodshed Ozai was prone to. My mother saw it, too, it’s what got her…” Azula cuts herself off. “The market is enough. The loyalty of the Clan and its tributaries is enough.”

“It isn’t, though!” Suki argues, voice sharp and abrupt. “Zhao betrayed you! Anyone else in your precious Clan could’ve done the same! Your father kept them all to heel through violence, not just political influence, not just trade, certainly not just loyalty. Why is this stupid, tangled underworld bullshit something you _want?”_

“Because I don’t know what else to do!” Azula exclaims, and sudden emotion comes rushing into her so fast she’s barely able to keep it reined in. “This isn’t a job, or a fun, casual hobby I get to dabble in sometimes. This is my life, what I was born and raised for. It’s my legacy, my Family…”

 _“Zuko_ is your family,” Suki fires back. “When your father disappeared, your Clan didn’t mourn him, and they sure as hell didn’t mourn you. Your father’s absence created a vacuum to be filled by whoever got hold of it first. You weren’t a beloved heir, you were a roadblock. And sure, maybe some of your people are loyal, some of them rooted for you, felt an obligation to you. But Zuko scooped you up and he did everything in his power to keep you safe, knowing full well how big of a disaster this could turn into. _He’s_ your family. What is it about Ozai’s world that has such a strong pull for you anyway? Money? Influence? Not having to be held accountable for a single thing you do to hurt someone else? Permission to crush anyone weaker than you under your heel? Is that really something you want? At the cost of everything else?”

Azula is silent. She keeps trying to get her hands on the right arguments, the right defenses, but they keep hitting up against the ledge of some barrier Suki has put in her mind, leaving them to crash and burn, falling away into nothing.

“It’s just…who I’m supposed to…be.”

Suki shifts her weight and places the mug on the counter, contained anger making her restless. “I told you you weren’t him,” she says quietly. “When we were here last, I told you you weren’t your father, and for a split second, you looked like you wanted to hate me for saying that. But then, of all fucking things, you looked relieved. Just for a moment, you looked relieved, like I’d just given you permission to breathe. And I want that look to have been real. I think about it all the time, the way you looked like a weight had just been lifted off you. _That’s_ the Azula I want to believe in. When I woke up the morning after we…” She huffs. “That morning, I kept bracing myself, thinking I was about to feel used, but I didn’t. I felt…happy. I want to believe in that, too. I don’t want to believe in the horrible thought Jet put words to earlier, the one that flares up in me sometimes, about you just biding your time before you turn on us, before you try to turn into your father. And I just don’t know which part of you I actually _do_ believe in when it all comes down to it.”

Azula stares at her and feels like she’s been cut up into the exact pieces Suki’s exposing. Not quite a whole Azula right now, just many chopped up bits of Azula on very ugly display.

“I don’t know what you want me to tell you,” she says finally.

“Tell me I’m right!” Suki exclaims. “Tell me I’m right to believe in you!”

She seems to immediately regret her outburst, squeezing her eyes shut and pinching the bridge of her nose with a harsh exhale. “Fuck, I’m sorry. I just…don’t like the thought of losing you.” She lifts her gaze back to Azula, looking desperate from some kind of response. “You have people that care about you, Azula, and not one of them is a member of your stupid Clan. Please don’t abandon what’s real for some fantasy of power your father put in your head.”

“I wasn’t going anywhere,” Azula says, voice small.

“But you could. Part of you still wants to, I can see it. But it’s a desperate, grieving part of you, and I just want you to know there’s more out there for you. There’s more _to_ you. I want you to believe that, because I want more than anything to believe in you.”

Azula’s still scrambling to put together the right words, but before she really knows what she’s doing, she’s striding toward Suki, pressing in and kissing her hard, and this makes sense. She isn’t sure what she believes in either, or what Suki believes, but this physical pull between them is something they can both agree is real and tangible, and—

Suki shoves her back hard enough that she nearly stumbles. Azula blinks at her in surprise, finding that Suki looks startled by her own actions—startled and looking at Azula like she wants her to pin her to the wall, that same recklessness she had when she’d thrown herself into a burning building crashing through her.

Azula dares to take a step toward her, and Suki’s already surging forward, pulling her in as close as she can get her, kissing hard like she’s claiming her, like she’s daring anything else to try to take her away.

Azula’s both surprised and enthralled by her sudden aggression, allows herself to be pushed and pulled toward Suki’s bed, pushes and pulls in return because everything with Suki always has to be a struggle, always.

She gets the upper hand and pushes her down onto the mattress, not giving her even a second to recover before she’s pulling down the zipper of her jeans. Suki’s answering moan sends pleasure curling through her body, and she strokes coaxingly between her legs for only a moment before sinking her fingers in deep, needing to feel that slick heat clenching around her, needing to be inside her.

Words were never going to be enough, not for this, not for now, best to burn it all away, sweat it all away, and forget—like Suki said—just forget who she is, who either of them are, what either of them has to believe in. When it all comes down to it, Azula doesn’t really see the point in believing in anything but this, right here, right now.


	18. Chapter 18

It’s a difficult thing to simultaneously tell someone _I care about you, you infuriate me, you’re a fucking idiot, sure you can make me come harder than I ever have so what about it, I want you to be rough with me, I want you to be gentle for once, I want you to come in my mouth, I want you to talk to me, I want to tear you apart, I want you to tear_ me _apart, I want you to stay, I want to heal every single thing that was ever broken in you, I want you to hurt for every horrible thing you’ve done, I want you to understand you’re better than what the world has tried to make you, I want you to lie_ still _for fucking once so I can look at you, I want you to stop fighting, I want you to_ keep _fighting forever, fighting me, fighting the people who’ve wronged you, and don’t stop what you’re doing, don’t ever fucking stop—_

—Yes, it’s almost impossible to put words to all those things at once, so Suki digs her nails into Azula’s back instead, or bites her shoulder, or tugs at her hair, or lets words fall senselessly from her, or says Azula’s name over and over, hoping each time it will get the point across. Doesn’t even know _which_ point she wants to get across, all of them, somehow all of them.

It’s different this time, she thinks distantly. That first time, Azula was passionate as all hell, but at the same time, somehow still detached. She had a goal in mind, and that goal was to break Suki into as many tiny pieces as possible.

This time it’s more reactive. This isn’t a trap Azula has set that Suki fell into, or for that matter, a trap Suki set for Azula to fall into. Something broke between them this time, some wall was ruptured—maybe didn’t shatter the way Suki would’ve liked, but the cracks are there, she can feel them.

Azula burns through every inch of her body, doesn’t give her time to catch her breath, seems almost like she’s trying to make up for their argument by giving her everything she wants. Won’t talk to her, of course, but will absolutely fuck the breath out of her. Suki tries to hold out longer, because Azula shouldn’t get to have the final say in all this, tries to dig in and refuse to fall, but the rhythm she’s set sends her spiraling all too quickly.

She pants up at the ceiling as Azula eases off her, hand going to her forehead as she tries to rein in her galloping heart rate.

“Fuck, you’re too good at that,” she breathes. Azula gives one of her entirely too self-satisfied hums of laughter, and Suki closes her eyes, trying to focus. “That’s not a compliment, it’s annoying.”

“Annoying?” Azula echoes. Suki can hear the raised eyebrow. She jolts, eyes flying open at the feeling of Azula running her hand up the slick inside of her thigh again, up to the apex of her legs and stroking lazily. “Is that really what you want to call it?”

“I just mean—“ Suki hitches in a breath as those fingers circle her clit teasingly. “I just want—more.”

“Oh, I see,” Azula hums, crawling over her again, sinking down to give Suki the full contact she constantly craves while her fingers continue to work her up.

“No, not—“ Suki tries, hips jerking involuntarily up to meet her movements. Her hand is moving of its own accord to grip at Azula’s shoulder. “Not more like that—I just want—“

With a great amount of effort, she flips Azula over on her back, straddling her. Azula blinks up at her in surprise, breath caught, and hair way too appealingly disheveled.

“I want…” Suki tries again, eyes roving hungrily over her bare form. She realizes she’s never seen Azula from this angle—from _above_ her for once—and she loves it. Actually gets to see her looking almost vulnerable. There’s so much she could do to her like this. She traces her fingers across Azula’s collarbone, then glides them down the valley between her breasts before curving up and beginning to palm one cautiously.

Azula holds her gaze, keeping herself _almost_ completely controlled, but she does bite her lip, seemingly unable to contain a sharp intake of breath through her nose, nipple hardening under Suki’s hand. Suki thrills at the reaction—muted as it is, it’s still a slip, and it encourages her further. She continues to knead, bending down first to kiss her, then nibbling across her jaw to bite her ear, then dipping lower to lick up the side of her throat. Warmth spreads through her at another small hitch in Azula’s breath, the way her body arches subtly into her. Suki hums approvingly at the response, dares to trail her hand down Azula’s body, pleasure rushing through her at the way the muscles in Azula’s abdomen jump and then cave as her chest presses up into her.

Suki dares to push her luck, hand wandering further—but Azula snaps her fingers around her wrist, and before Suki knows what’s happening, Azula has flipped her over on her back again, settling her weight between her legs and pinning the offending hand against the mattress. Her gaze on Suki is a warning one as before, but somehow…easier, warmer. A little flicker of amusement in her eyes. She pins her with that gaze and Suki squirms.

Azula clicks her tongue. “Bad girl,” she whispers.

Suki feels her entire body flush, which does not go unnoticed by Azula. She hums knowingly.

“You are, aren’t you,” Azula murmurs, voice low and warm, the timbre of it thrumming through Suki’s chest. She runs her fingers soothingly through Suki’s hair. “My very sweet, but very bad girl. Can never leave well enough alone, can you.”

Suki feels color rise high on her cheeks, pulse racing as Azula drags her hand down her throat to her breast, squeezing, and rolling the nipple to hardness.

“Always getting into trouble,” Azula continues in her warm purr. “Always pushing your boundaries.” Her hand skims down her body, slipping between her legs. “What am I going to do with you? Hm?”

“There’s, um…” Suki stammers haltingly.

Azula cocks an eyebrow, curious.

“In that top drawer…” Suki says, jutting her chin toward the dresser.

Azula looks reluctant to tear herself away from Suki—and Suki mentally notes that down—but curiosity overtakes her, likely heightened by Suki’s inability to verbalize what she’s pointed toward. She eases off the bed, and Suki hates the rush of cold that follows when her body was _so warm_ against her…

Azula opens the top drawer of the dresser, finding the box Suki was hoping she’d find, and brings it back to bed with her.

“What exactly do we have here?” Azula muses, settling back down on the edge of the bed and opening the box. Suki sits up and crawls over, settling just a little behind her, leaning her chin on Azula’s shoulder, pressing appealingly against her.

“Just some things I’ve collected over the years,” Suki says, running her hand up the plane of Azula’s back. She takes a moment to nuzzle into her neck before adding, “If you’re really wondering what to do with me…maybe some inspiration.”

“I’ll say,” Azula murmurs. She begins unloading the box piece by piece, revealing the multitude of odds and ends Suki has bought—some she’s enjoyed several times, some she’s bought with the intention of using but never finding the right person for, and some she’s bought purely out of curiosity, or for a laugh.

Azula looks each one over with interest, like she’s cataloguing them, seeing how they fit into Suki—both in the psychological sense, and the very literal sense in some cases. Suki enjoys her slow perusal, dropping the occasional kiss to her shoulder, fingers toying with her hair.

Azula pauses at a slim leather choker, drawing it out more slowly than the other toys, thumb running along the edge of it. She shifts so she can look back at Suki.

“Has anyone ever put this on you?” she asks.

Suki’s throat is dry all of a sudden at the sound of her voice. “No,” she says.

Apparently this is the right answer. Azula’s gaze falls to her throat, the energy around her seeming to swirl and thicken into something darker, more possessive, and Suki’s heart begins to hammer at the walls of her chest, both aroused, and suddenly a little intimidated.

“Good,” Azula utters quietly. She reaches forward slowly, fastening the collar around Suki’s neck in a way that’s almost reverent, and Suki thinks she’s getting something out of this that goes beyond just a casual interest. Azula runs her fingers along the collar, circling the metal ring at the front for a moment, then angling her head back to admire the full picture.

“I like this,” she says finally.

Suki rolls her eyes, laughing but also feeling heat slither up her spine. “Why does that not surprise me?”

Azula’s answering smile is devilish, and she hooks her finger into the ring, using it to tug Suki in close, drawing a small, involuntary sound of surprise from her lips. “Because you know me so well,” she answers, and pulls Suki the rest of the way to her mouth, kissing her hungrily.

Suki whimpers into the kiss, has just a split second to revel in the idea that Azula really said she _knows her so well_ —then forgets to think any further than that, because Azula is actually moaning against her now as her fingers continue to play with the collar, pushing her back down against the mattress. It’s almost a possessive growl—the choker seems to be stirring Azula into a more intense state of arousal than Suki has seen in her. She’s usually so controlled. This seems to be sort of undoing her, and she lets go of the choker only to splay her fingers against Suki’s skin, wrapping her hand _just_ this side of gently around her throat.

“God, you’re beautiful,” Azula mumbles against her.

Suki blushes harder somehow, glad that Azula’s too busy enjoying the feeling of her to see. Azula aroused, Azula… _affectionate._ Suki can hardly be surprised by the possessiveness, even though it thrills her to her very core—but Azula nuzzling into her, making these new delicious sounds, rubbing up against her, hands grasping for as much of her as they can…Suki wraps her legs tight around her, trying to pull her closer.

Of course that desperation catches Azula’s notice, and being the evil tease she is, she pulls away, prying Suki’s thighs open just enough to sit back on her heels.

Suki makes a pitiful whining sound, and that needles a smile out of her. She slips her finger into the choker ring again, giving it a suggestive tug. Suki obeys the signal, struggling to sit up. She’s unused to the uncomfortable pressure around her neck, but is very quickly starting to love it.

Azula keeps her finger hooked in the ring even when Suki’s sitting up level with her, seeming to just like the feeling of it. A smile plays at her lips as she continues toying with it, and she lifts her gaze back up to Suki’s eyes.

“I want you to wear this,” she tells her.

“I am wearing it.”

Azula rolls her eyes. “Smart ass,” she mumbles, but it’s still affectionate. She gives Suki’s bottom lip a quick nip. “I want you to wear it any time I fuck you.”

Suki shivers, almost _painfully_ turned on at this point. Part of her wants to ask how long Azula plans on keeping this whole…sort-of-friends-sort-of-fuck-buddies-sort-of-too-intense-to-have-a-name thing going. The other, slightly more dominant part of her, is struggling to remember what words are.

She nods, because that seems like a safe bet. No words required.

“Good girl,” Azula murmurs, and Suki’s never thought of herself as the type to have a praise kink, but fuck if that little utterance didn’t just go straight between her legs.

But Azula pulls her interest elsewhere, sifting back through Suki’s things.

“What else haven’t you used with anyone?” she asks.

Suki huffs out a laugh, because of course Azula would refuse to use anything that might come with the memory of someone else attached to it. Honestly, she has nothing to worry about—Suki is currently blanking on the names and faces of every single other person she’s ever been with; her world has very much been taken over by Azula and no one else.

(She could’ve sworn she once told Azula she didn’t belong to her, but _that_ pitifully defiant lie has long since been thrown out the window. As evidenced by the fact that she is now wearing a literal collar around her neck).

She takes a breath to focus, taking up her place behind Azula again so she can nip and kiss at her shoulder, her neck, her ear, while pointing out what she has used, and what she hasn’t.

Azula looks surprised at some of things she _has_ done—actually twisting around to look at Suki with shock when Suki points to the coiled up whip and says, “Yep, used that with a couple people, actually.”

“Really?” Azula asks, eyebrows high. She purses her lips thoughtfully. “You’re a lot kinkier than I thought you’d be.”

“I’m not kinky. Just…curious.”

“Mhm. Well you know what they say about curiosity and the cat.”

“That satisfaction brought it back?” Suki guesses with as much performative innocence as she can.

Azula laughs. “Sure, we’ll focus on that part.” She holds up the whip again. “Somehow I can’t quite picture you allowing someone to _whip_ you.”

“I didn’t,” Suki tells her, nipping her ear. “I was the one doing the whipping.”

Azula looks her over, head cocked in thought before her lips curve into a smirk. “You know, I actually think I like that visual,” she says.

“You saying you want me to whip you?” Suki teases, fully aware that the answer is no, but unable to resist pushing her buttons a bit.

Azula laughs. “Not in a million years, angel,” she says. “But nice try.” She sets the whip aside in the pile of _things others have used and are therefore garbage._ “I prefer being in control.”

Suki gives her a flabbergasted look. _“You_ like being in _control?”_ she asks. “I would never have imagined that, Azula.”

Azula rolls her eyes. “You’re hilarious,” she says.

Suki takes Azula’s chin, angling her gently so she can look at her. She takes a moment to run her fingers through Azula’s hair.

“All jokes aside,” she says hesitantly, “I’ve kind of been wondering. About that.”

Azula arches an eyebrow, prompting her to explain.

“You don’t have to answer,” Suki tells her, “but I’m going to ask anyway, just to get it out there.” She plays with the ends of Azula’s hair cautiously. “You never let me touch you, and you never let me make you come.”

“Is there a question in there?”

“My question is why? You just seem like you’d be more…” Suki trails off, looking for the right word.

“More…?”

“…Like you’d take what you want,” Suki says as diplomatically as she can.

“I do take what I want,” Azula tells her, turning a little so she can glide her hand up between Suki’s legs with a smirk. “Think I’ve taken you several times now. And I have every intention of taking you several times more.”

That…sort of derails Suki’s train of thought for a moment, even more so when Azula starts stroking her again. She has to grab Azula’s wrist and stop her in order to get her thoughts back in order.

“But…”

“Trust me, I give myself exactly what I need,” Azula tells her lightly.

“But you never let _me_ give you what you need,” Suki says. She realizes too late that she revealed just a little too much of what she really wants, and quickly tries to make up for it by pulling the mood back into clearer air.

“I just don’t want you to miss out,” she says with loftier humor. She bumps shoulders with her. “I’m _very_ good.”

Azula lets out a soft chuckle. “Oh I’m certain of that,” she says.

“Sex with me has been referred to as mind-blowing,” Suki continues. “I come with glowing testimonials.”

“I would expect nothing less.”

“Still not winning you over?”

“Nope.”

“Will you tell me why? I mean, you don’t have to. I’m not trying to push, and I’m not judging, but I can’t help but be curious. Is it that you just don’t like it, or…?”

“Suki,” Azula says, taking her chin in her hand. Suki falls silent immediately and Azula’s lips curve into a small smile. “This may have escaped your notice but I’m actually going through your things trying to orchestrate a scenario in which I fuck you so hard you can’t see straight for days. And you really want to sit here _talking_ instead?”

Suki finds herself incapable of answering that one. Because on the one hand…sort of yes. But on the other hand…sort of no. But also yes. And also no.

…Suki’s brain and Suki’s libido seem to be on fighting terms right now. As per usual when it comes to Azula.

Azula takes advantage of Suki’s inability to choose, using the ring to pull Suki into another kiss, and Suki can tell this is a new favorite thing of Azula’s, and she likes knowing Azula’s favorite things, likes it so much it makes her want to do whatever she wants. At the same time, it makes her want to rebel, seems the only way she gets to learn more about Azula is if she rebels, if she challenges her.

For once though, it’s Azula who stops, Azula who picks up the unfinished threads of their conversation.

“Why so interested, anyway?” she asks. And maybe she didn’t mean to ask that out loud, because she resumes kissing her, not giving her the chance to answer.

Too late, though, the question’s out there, and Suki presses on her shoulder to keep her out of reach enough to get a word in. “Are you really asking me why I want to make you come?” she laughs.

“Yes. I’m already giving you what you want, I’ve told you there’s no need to return the favor.”

“It’s not about returning the favor, Azula, this isn’t a transaction,” Suki tells her. “I just want to. You like making me come, don’t you?”

“Have I not been obvious about that?”

Suki laughs, taking Azula’s lower lip between her teeth and pulling a little before letting go. “You have,” she assures her. “And you should know, the feeling’s mutual. If you want it.”

And Azula’s looking at her warily, like she doesn’t quite trust her, like she’s expecting some horrible trap to be sprung, looks like a wild animal spooked by a gunshot ringing out through the forest. There is something undeniably feral and untamable about her that Suki is simultaneously insanely attracted to, and just a little saddened by.

“I don’t like…” Azula says hesitantly. She runs her fingers through Suki’s hair and it’s almost apologetic. “I don’t like not being in control.”

Just a few minutes ago, Suki had teased Azula about her tenacious cleaving to control; this time, it’s not so funny. Just admitting her need for control makes her somehow vulnerable, and it tugs hard at Suki’s heart. She isn’t sure whether there’s more to the story—whether something happened to make her feel that way, or if it’s just a preference, or what. Either way, Suki reminds herself it isn’t her business, not really. She may know Azula better than most, but she’s not entitled to more than Azula is willing to give. _Especially_ given the ambiguousness of their situation, their relationship if it’s even right to call it that.

“Okay,” she whispers, bumping noses with her, trying to lift the mood back up. “That’s okay. I’m not exactly complaining about you taking control, you’re sort of amazing at it.”

“Sort of?” Azula echoes, humor coming back to her, and Suki’s relieved to see that hint of smugness returning. It’s a little fragile now, but it’s there, and it’s quickly regaining its hold.

“Only sort of,” Suki teases.

And Azula has to know she’s just baiting her, but it doesn’t stop her from getting promptly to work proving that _sort of amazing_ is not the appropriate description. The more appropriate description is closer to earth-shatteringly incredible, which Azula demonstrates by using two pairs of cuffed restraintsat the headboard, and the bottom of the bed’s frame, to keep Suki’s arms and legs bound and spread wide. She takes a moment to lick slowly up the length of Suki’s slit, and Suki flinches, entire body wanting to curl around and pull Azula in closer, but unable to budge. This is far from her only time using restraints (although not these _specific_ restraints, she assures Azula), but more often than not, she was the one doing the tying, and even when roles were reversed, she never _really_ felt a loss of control.

Of course, things are different with Azula. Everything about her demeanor commands submission, no words or toys necessary. She’s ruthless with Suki like this, fucking her hard and fast, not giving her time to recover before she moves on to some new way of fucking her, taking special delight in pushing her to the brink, and then denying Suki what she breathlessly thinks is a well-fucking-earned orgasm.

“Not until I say,” Azula chides, gently scratching her nails down Suki’s quivering abdomen, through the sweat that’s beaded across her skin. Suki presses her head back against the mattress, arching with a shaky groan, limbs trembling at every tease. She winds the small amount of slack in the restraints tighter around her hands as Azula begins licking everywhere except where Suki needs her most, pulling them taut, wishing she was gripping into hair, or her back, but this is all she has access to.

“Please,” she whimpers, and Azula laughs, but doesn’t give in.

“Not until I say,” she repeats. She lifts her head, hand gliding up Suki’s abdomen, making her squirm. “I like you like this,” she says. “Helpless.”

She looks her over for a moment in thought, then looks around the room, gaze falling to the cheap full-length mirror Suki’s never had the chance to frame or hang, instead leaving it leaning up against the wall.

An idea seeming to occur to her, Azula turns back to Suki with a smirk, undoing first the restraints at her ankles, then the ones at her wrists. Suki sighs in relief, not having realized until now the way the cuffs have bitten into her skin, rubbing it red.

Azula reaches for the ring on the choker again, giving it a short tug to indicate that Suki is to sit up. Suki obeys with a tremendous amount of effort, muscles protesting every movement. She helplessly follows Azula’s lead in positioning her on her knees on the mattress, facing the mirror. She flinches as Azula positions herself behind her, pulling Suki’s arms back and binding them again, loosely with rope this time.

She takes a moment to play with the choker ring again before wrapping her hand around Suki’s throat, applying a bit more pressure than she has before, and Suki’s glad she’s already on her knees, glad she’s on the mattress, or her legs would have given out under her. Azula nips at the exposed parts of her neck before pressing her mouth to her ear, breath hot and tickling the sensitive skin.

“I want you to watch us,” Azula murmurs. “See how fucking gorgeous you are when you belong to me.”

Suki gives a whimpering shudder as Azula’s free hand winds around her, dipping between her legs. It’s almost surreal to watch it happen in the mirror while feeling it at the same time, watching those fingers sink into her and feeling the pressure along with them. She watches Azula’s hands, Azula’s lips, arches into her hand as it trails down from her throat to knead at her breast, thrusts her hips desperately into Azula’s hand between her legs.

She feels the hand Azula has at her breast coming back to untie her wrists, gives her only a moment to realize it, before she pushes her forward into the mattress. Suki barely catches herself on her elbow, sinking her head down into the covers and pressing her hips back into Azula as Azula continues to fuck her from behind.

Just as her legs begin to shake again in earnest, Azula lets go of her, helping her roll back over onto her back, which at this point is honestly a relief. She sighs happily as Azula crawls over her and begins to grind down against her, setting an aggressive pace, the bed creaking under them.

Finally unrestrained, without toys of any kind between them or distracting them, Suki is free to feel nothing but Azula, and it’s her favorite thing, getting to grasp at searing hot flesh, one leg sliding up to hitch over Azula’s hip, pulling her close. She pants up at her, gripping the sheets and trying to keep up with her relentless pace, feeling her climax building and dreading that Azula will deny her again.

“Please,” she breathes preemptively, eyes wide and pleading.

“Not until I say,” Azula says once more.

And Suki has no idea how she expects her to hold out when she’s finally getting contact everywhere she needs it, the exact pace, the exact friction, everything so perfect she thinks it might break her if Azula were to stop. She cries out, doing everything in her power to resist, to keep herself under control when she’s almost too close to bear. She’s grasping hard at the sheets, hears them begin to rip, doesn’t even care…

“Azula please,” she begs.

“Just a little longer,” Azulatells her, and it’s unfair that she only sounds _slightly_ out of breath. “Hold out just a little longer, angel.”

“I can’t—“ Suki pleads, almost feels the need to cry from the effort. She presses her head back, straining against her. “Azula I can’t, please let me, I can’t—“

Azula gives that rare, warm laugh that Suki feels rumble all through her body, then dips down, pressing her mouth to her ear.

“I suppose since you asked so nicely,” she says. “Come for me, sweet girl.”

Suki sobs with relief, finally letting herself surrender to the storm, clenching down hard on Azula’s fingers, feeling her body rise and fall as the storm tears her apart. Some last frantic part of her tries to pull Azula into the storm with her— _come on in, the lightning’s warm—_ but Azula just pushes her father into it, anchoring herself—anchoring herself, but maybe just barely, Suki dares to hope as she rides out the last few waves of pleasure.

She stares up at the ceiling as her breath slows and her heart goes from crashing against the walls of her chest to simply thudding. She feels Azula move, expects her to slip away. Instead, she’s shifting to unclasp the choker from her neck and setting it aside. She kisses the sensitive skin finally exposed from under it, lips soft.

Suki almost wishes she wouldn’t—her entire body is drained and so over-sensitized, even the mattress beneath her feels like too much pressure.

At the same time…Azula remaining laid out against her like this, being gentle, affectionate, tender, not trying to start anything new, just soothing her down…Suki could spend eternity like this.

“Thought you wanted me to wear the collar when we’re together,” she murmurs, almost too exhausted to get the words out. "So I can belong to you."

Azula shifts so she can look down at her, running her hand gently across her throat. “I like it when you _don’t_ belong to me, too,” she says quietly, then sinks back down, nuzzling into her neck, tangling their legs together and laying her arm out across Suki’s waist.

Unexpected emotion rises up in Suki’s chest at the words, and she gathers just enough energy to turn in to Azula, pressing a kiss to her forehead before letting exhaustion drag her down into a comfortable sleep.

She wakes several hours later to the sound of her front door clicking closed. She lifts her head. Azula is gone, but the bed is still warm, and the lateness of the hour suggests that Azula stayed for a long time. Didn’t stay the night, of course, Azula wouldn’t. Maybe she slept, maybe she didn’t. But she did stay. Just for a couple hours, she stayed. She came here because she wanted to make sure Suki was okay, spent the afternoon fucking her, and then stayed. Claimed her, set her free, and stayed. And left.

That night, Suki doubles the collar up, wrapping it around her wrist and buckling it loosely, falling asleep to the comfortable reminder of Azula in her hand.

*

She worries a little, the following morning on her way to Zuko’s, that things will become awkward between her and Azula again. More walls have fallen after all, and Azula does believe in self-preservation at the expense of everything else.

But Azula seems happy to see her. Keeps shooting looks at her over Avatar Security and Jet’s tenuous continued working relationship, brushes her hand subtly along her wrist, or her waist when she passes by, murmurs promises of what she intends to do with her given half a chance when no one’s looking.

And Suki knows it’s important to help in figuring out Zhao’s next steps, at pinpointing where tensions between the Clans are highest, gathering as much information as possible to bring some sort of balance back to the warring gangs to ensure not only Azula’s safety, but the safety of those caught in the crossfire of those rising tensions between factions.

All of that is important, but Suki still finds herself impatient every evening for them all to disperse, so she can go home, and Azula can follow her, and spend hours taking her apart. Hours learning about her, opening her up. Which she does. It becomes almost a nightly ritual.

The thing about Azula is that she makes fucking her hot and raw and filthy…but she also has this tendency to hold and caress Suki like she’s something precious at the same time. She fucks her like she has something to prove. The way she pushes Suki past her limits comes not from a place of brutality or even ego as Suki had once thought, but from the desire to make it known that she can give Suki something no one else can. It can be painful, but the attention she lavishes on Suki, while relentless, comes from a place of genuine affection.

Suki thinks Azula would probably continue fucking her into literal insanity if she didn’t stop her—not because she wants to hurt her, but because it’s the only way she knows how to show her how highly she thinks of her. Azula has placed her on a pedestal. Granted, a pedestal she frequently bends her over to fuck her against, but a pedestal nonetheless.

On the one hand, Suki thinks, forcing orgasms to the point of pain and total exhaustion might be sort of a misguided means of declaring her devotion. On the other hand, being pushed past her limits is something Suki is starting to love. Each time, she feels like she’s gotten closer to Azula, closer to that fiercely protected heart buried deep inside there.

Best of all, though, is the aftermath. When Azula takes off the choker and lays out next to her. She stays for longer amounts of time each night. Suki catches her falling asleep once or twice, and nestles in the crook of her neck, playing with her fingers.

There finally comes a morning when Suki wakes up with Azula’s arm still laid out across her waist. Sunlight plays against her skin, dances in her hair, and Suki feels warm down to the tips of her toes.

It’s a mistake, she knows, because not long after, Azula jolts awake, seeming surprised to find herself still tangled up in Suki. Suki stays still, eyes closed, pretending to still be asleep, trying to allow Azula to preserve her dignity by not being caught doing anything as awful as staying the night and cuddling.

She waits for Azula to move. Counts the seconds. Then counts the breaths. Then listens as they even out, as Azula sinks back into sleep, fingers curling comfortably against her. Suki’s heart soars, and she buries her head in Azula’s chest, unable to find the lies necessary to pretend she isn’t falling just a little head over heels for the former heir to the Fire Clan.


	19. Chapter 19

Azula knows she’s slithered her way under the skin of many women over the years, knows her memory is burned into the inside of many other women’s flesh. She knows she’s left a permanent mark on everyone she’s ever gotten her hands on, and no matter what they might try to do to dislodge her, she’ll still be there, to ruin any further encounters they have from then on. She’s embedded deep in them, she’s made a point of it.

She has, however, never been held onto through choice.

Azula will do herself the service of claiming that yes, probably she’s ruined Suki for any and all other sexual partners she may have in the future, but she’s puzzled by the fact the Suki doesn’t seem to be trying to rid herself of Azula’s claim on her. She’s holding these pieces of Azula, these memories and experiences and feelings, and she’s carrying them willingly everywhere she goes.

Azula has been called broken before, on more than one occasion, and by more than just a small handful of people, and is accustomed to the knowledge that she is very much akin to a million little slivers of shattered glass under the skin of her conquests. That’s the fun of being a little broken. You get to work your way under another’s skin and remain a constant phantom pang in them.

Suki, by contrast, takes Azula’s shattered pieces and holds them gently in her hand, aware of the dangers of being cut, and careful to avoid both harming herself, and breaking Azula any further. Azula tries to remember that it’s best to remain jagged and rough, tries to keep herself sharp, doesn’t want to hurt Suki, but wants to retain just enough of an edge to remind her not to relax around her. But Suki, well aware of her bite, continues to hold her anyway.

Occasionally, Azula thinks, Suki tries to arrange her shattered pieces into something that makes sense. But she doesn’t try to _fix_ her, and maybe Azula likes that. Maybe Azula likes that Suki takes pieces of her and keeps them with her, and brings them together in what is nearly the right shape, but doesn’t force them back together in a nicer pattern. Azula nestles in her hand, and doesn’t cut, doesn’t bite, just allows herself to be held.

It isn’t something she should get used to, she knows that, but just for a little while…

Just for a little while.

She doesn’t recognize it’s a problem until one morning when she wakes up in Zuko’s guest room with her arm around a pillow, having crushed it into her side, and fully expecting to wake up to Suki nestled into her. The surprise of it not being her, followed by the terrible disappointment that settles heavily in her chest, causes her to curl up against the pillow with frustrated groan. She _misses_ her. Away from her for _one fucking night,_ and she _misses_ her.

Her morning is made all the more unpleasant when _Zuko_ knocks on her door and strides right in without waiting for her to respond.

“Good, you’re up,” he says as he enters, seeming to be in a suspiciously good mood. “We’ve got some work to do.”

Azula groans again, covering her head with a pillow. “No,” she whines into it. “No more work. You said we were taking Saturday off, I need a fucking weekend, Zuko. No more looking over news clippings or blueprints or city plans or listening to press conferences or anything like that. No work today, you promised.”

“I know,” he says. “We’re not doing that type of work.”

She jolts as something lands on the bed, and removes the pillow from her face to see what exactly Zuko just _threw_ on her. She sits up and picks up what appears to be a very bright—dare she even say _neon_ —orange vest.

“What is this supposed to be?” she asks.

“Your outfit for today.”

She narrows her eyes at him. “Explain.”

“Avatar Security walks a fine line,” he tells her, and she rolls her eyes, settling in for what will likely be a preachy monologue about Being A Good Person.

“Our goal is to protect people who can’t protect themselves,” her brother continues, “not get involved in the law and order part of bringing criminals in. Getting involved in that end of the process is, as I’m sure you know, ripe for corruption. We tried working more closely with a police liaison a while back, but it went badly as many times as it went well. Aang and I finally came to the conclusion that our values lay in protecting people, keeping them safe, rescuing them. As for doling out punishments…that went beyond what we could legally get away with while still putting the victims first. We had to make a choice, and we did. Protect first, and if the opportunity to bring someone in presents itself, we take careful steps in seeing things through.

“The problem with our end of the job,” he goes on, “is that it comes with consequences. Basically, no good deed goes unpunished. We do something like, say…keeping someone who’s been targeted by a loan shark safe, but when said loan shark goes looking for our charge and can’t find them, they might start destroying our charge’s home. Might go looking for other ways to find them. Might threaten people, might even get violent. So even when we’re protecting someone, there’s almost always a consequential mess to be cleaned up.” He nods at the orange vest she’s holding with some disgust in her hands. “We have a responsibility to our charges above all things, but we also have a responsibility to clean up the messes we’ve made.”

“Let me guess,” Azula drawls. “Protecting _me_ has created one massive fucking shitshow of a mess.”

“Arson, a huge swell in gang warfare, a little looting here and there,” Zuko agrees. “I’d say so.”

“So what is this for?” Azula asks pointedly, holding the vest a little higher.

“There was a shootout the other night that took out a corner store and two surrounding businesses,” he tells her. “So you, me, and the rest of my top agents will be spending the day doing a little rebuilding.”

Azula stares at him. “So you’re…giving me community service,” she says disbelievingly.

Zuko gives her a completely insufferable smirk. “I’m giving you community service,” he confirms.

“You’re really going to make me spend the day fixing up entire _buildings?”_ Azula sputters.

“No, no, Azula, I’m going to make you spend the _weekend_ fixing up entire buildings,” Zuko corrects with a smile. “Anyway, relax, you’re not _really_ going to be fixing up entire buildings. It’s mostly just the store fronts that need to be fixed up. Replace some window panes, mend up any structural damage, redo the paint job if necessary…”

“I call paint job,” Azula says quickly.

“Nah, I think some heavy lifting will do you more good,” he says with a smile. “Callouses build character.”

She scowls darkly at him. “I hate you,” she says. “So very, _very_ deeply.”

“I know,” Zuko says, continuing to smile.

“I thought I wasn’t supposed to be leaving your house,” Azula says. “Isn’t that the whole point of keeping me here? To keep me hidden from Zhao so he can’t find me? Keep me safe from danger? And now you want to dress me up in a neon vest and parade me outside where _anyone_ could see me?”

“Well, seeing as you’ve been sneaking out of the house every other night for the past two weeks to go to Suki’s anyway…” Zuko says, one eye twinkling with far too much humor.

Azula frowns warningly at him.

“You’ll have my best agents looking out for you while we do this,” he continues. “Besides, pretty sure the last place Zhao—or anyone, really—would expect to find you would be at a construction site. Oh—speaking of…”

He leans out into the hallway, grabbing something off one of the side tables before coming back in her room. He holds up the object he has retrieved with a grin before tossing it onto the bed.

Azula leans forward guardedly, picking up the grimy yellow construction hat, staring at it in horror.

“Zuko, what is this?” she asks. “I’m not wearing this.”

“You’ll wear it if you want to avoid a concussion,” he says.

“You can’t make me wear this. You can’t make me go to your stupid construction site, either.”

Zuko shrugs. “I guess not.” He cocks his head, looking too sure of himself. “Suki’ll be there, though.”

He leaves with that remark, and Azula stares down at the horrifying vest and the horrifying hat, face twisted in disgust.

Finally, grumbling, she gets out of bed and dresses, putting the stupid things on and joining Zuko outside.

*

It isn’t… _awful,_ Azula supposes. Though she does think it’s completely unfair that Suki, Katara, and Aang get to take those long rolly things and _paint_ the sides of the buildings—not even for a _reason,_ just to make them _look nice._ Meanwhile, she, Toph, and the boys are doing what is very much more notably _construction work._

Twenty minutes into it, Azula has already hammered her thumb twice, has blisters on both hands, and gets her hat knocked right off her head as Toph walks by with a two-by-four.

 _“Ouch,_ Toph, watch it!” she snaps.

“Right, Princess, I’ll just do that,” Toph fires back. “I’ll just _watch it.”_

Azula realizes her mistake and mutters a quick apology. That was an honest mistake.

“Don’t worry,” Sokka says, clapping her on the shoulder with a _very_ unfriendly grin as Toph begins unloading supplies by the broken doorframe. “She’ll get you back for it.”

He isn’t wrong—not ten minutes later, Toph drops a sledgehammer on her toe.

“The _hell—_ that one was on purpose!” Azula snarls.

“Sorry Miss Crankypants, didn’t realize you were such a delicate flower,” Toph taunts, turning back to her job and whistling innocently at the sound of Zuko approaching.

“Everyone getting along here?” Zuko asks pointedly.

Azula, Sokka, and Toph all grumble out a chastised “Yes” and get back to work

She’s grateful beyond belief when it’s time to take a break. The others gather by Sokka’s jeep to get food and water, but Azula snags Suki by the elbow as she goes to join them, pulling her around the corner of the building where she and Katara and Aang spent the morning painting.

Suki lets out a little sound of surprise, grinning when she sees it’s Azula who grabbed her.

“What are you doing?” she laughs. She’s wearing overalls and has flecks of paint speckling her arms, shoulders, and neck, sweat on her brow, and as someone who rarely uses the word cute, Azula’s going to go ahead and say Suki looks goddamn adorable.

And fuckable. So very, very fuckable.

“Just thought you could show me what you’ve been working on all morning,” she purrs, taking Suki’s hips and beginning to back her toward the wall.

“Azula, wait—the paint’s still wet—“

Suki twists out of Azula’s hold, grabbing a paint brush from one of the cans in defense and brandishing it playfully out in front of her like a weapon. The action causes an arc of paint to splatter across Azula’s front.

Azula stares down at herself, lifting her gaze to lock eyes with Suki, who’s biting her lip against a laugh.

“Oh now you’ve done it,” Azula growls. She dives for another paint can, grabbing the brush propped inside and raises it just in time to defend herself against a laughing Suki as she descends upon her, apparently bound and determined to cover her with paint. The two of them leap and lunge at each other by turns in an unexpected game that has Azula grinning before she has the chance to realize what she’s doing.

It doesn’t take long for their play-fighting to end in Suki pushing Azula back up against the wall, laughing between kisses, and Azula can feel sticky paint getting all over her and thinks she’s never been happier.

She tangles her fingers in Suki’s hair, pulling just enough to separate so she can look at her, grinning wolfishly. “You have _no idea_ what you’re in for tonight,” she murmurs in a teasing threat, something warmer than just arousal flaring to life inside her as Suki’s cheeks flush bright red.

_“Ahem.”_

Azula and Suki both jump at the sound of Toph clearing her throat pointedly from the corner of the building.

“Break time’s over,” she announces, arms crossed.

Azula and Suki separate quickly, and just in time too, as Katara and Sokka round the corner as well. Azula walks sullenly over to join her cohorts, flinching when Toph sniffs at her.

“You smell like paint,” she observes.

“You _look_ like paint,” Katara adds as she crosses the lawn to Suki, tone just a little too knowing.

Sokka narrows his eyes and looks suspiciously at the sort of Azula-shaped mess in the otherwise flawless paint job of the building wall, and frowns in thought as he, Toph, and Azula make their way back to the store front to carry on rebuilding.

*

Azula makes good on her promise that night, fucking Suki with a newfound vigor that seems to have bloomed from their play-fighting from earlier in the day. She loves the sound of Suki’s laugh, loves the playfulness in every move Suki makes, loves the wildness of her. For some reason, she can’t bring herself to put the choker on her tonight, doesn’t want her bound in any way just now.

She does, however, have to get even with her, breaking out the very few things in Suki’s box of toys she hasn’t used with her yet. In this particular case, she makes good use of the strap-on Suki has often teased might be too big for her to handle.

In the spirit of getting even with her, Azula decides tonight’s as good a night as any to put that tease to the test.

It’s not Azula’s favorite way to fuck. It’s a little too removed—she doesn’t actually get to feel the slick heat clenching around her fingers, or taste her arousal on her tongue. But she can certainly appreciate the view as she slams into Suki from behind, and there’s a physicality to it that’s immensely satisfying, engaging every muscle in Azula’s body until they burn, the bed slamming up against the wall.

And Suki is certainly enjoying it. Her hands are gripping the sheets hard enough to turn her knuckles white, and the breathless cries that spill from her at each snap and roll of Azula’s hips send heat roiling through her core. The beads of sweat breaking out across her back are fascinating, as is the slick evidence of her arousal dripping down the inside of her thighs, and Azula runs her fingers up along her spine, raking them back down, making Suki buck back against her with another whine.

Azula grips Suki’s hips firmly, guiding her movements so she can fuck into her harder, pitching those desperate sounds higher. She lets go of her with one hand, giving Suki’s ass a hard, satisfying slap. Suki gasps and gives a broken sounding curse, bucking back with renewed urgency.

_Fuck._

Azula’s eyes slip shut for a moment—just a moment, losing herself, before she remembers to rein in control. She picks up her pace punishingly, like that slip was Suki’s fault, which it was, and slaps her ass again. She drives her hard until Suki’s movements become erratic with her frantic chase to come.

Just before she can, Azula pulls out of her, earning herself an almost pained cry, before she flips her over on her back and plunges back inside, giving her the briefest moment to adjust before resuming her hard pace, bracing one hand on the mattress beside Suki’s head, the other one gripping the headboard to push herself in deeper, needing to be able to see Suki’s face as she finally falls apart.

It’s gorgeous as ever, and made all the better for the feeling of Suki’s legs wrapped hard around her waist, nails digging into her back as she rides out the aftershocks.

Azula pulls out of her slowly as Suki winds down, fleetingly considers just how evil it would be to work her up again while she’s still trying to catch her breath. Ultimately she decides against it, stripping out of and discarding the strap-on in favor of sinking down against Suki instead, holding her close, rubbing up against her in a way that’s a _very_ bad idea. She calms herself down and nuzzles into her neck instead, even as Suki makes small, pleading noises for her to keep going.

It’s tempting—gets more and more tempting each time—to give in to the rush, to finally let herself ride those waves of pleasure until she crashes on the shore with Suki. Instead she wrestles control back over herself, back over Suki, working them _both_ down before any mistakes are made.

She doesn’t know how to account for the fact that as she collapses more comfortably against her, she breathes out the word “You.”

Suki’s fingers are in her hair, and she gives a breathless laugh. “‘Me’, what?” she asks.

Azula burrows her head in Suki’s neck and holds her impossibly closer. “I don’t know,” she murmurs sleepily. “Just you.”

She feels Suki hesitate, then press a kiss to the top of her head, and Azula lets herself get dragged down into a deep sleep.

*

The strangest thing begins to happen over the course of the next week.

Zuko is very committed to this whole community service thing, now splitting the days—mornings are for conferring with Jet and other similarly shady contacts in trying to get a handle on Zhao’s movements and the way they tie into the recent swell of gang warfare; and afternoons are for volunteering in the reconstruction of businesses and homes damaged by said warfare.

It so happens that a few days in, Azula, Sokka, and Toph begin to find something of a rhythm to their work. Tools are passed between them without need for words. Sokka assists her in fitting a door to its frame. Toph introduces her to the savage joys of welding. Azula helps them both stabilize a beam in danger of crumbling.

There are no words of thanks passed between them, but things ease the slightest bit, and by the middle of the week, Azula finds herself looking forward to the work. God help her, she’s actually enjoying physical labor. She tries to tell herself it’s because she’s been so restless since her incarceration with these people began, but really, she thinks she likes having a goal, having something to accomplish, evidence of her work blooming to life in front of her eyes.

The fact that the businesses they work with often provide refreshments, and the fact that Suki keeps finding opportunities to steal kisses from her whenever no one’s looking…those are just bonuses.

The members of Avatar Security are not entirely terrible. It’s a bigger operation than Azula had originally been aware of. Having gotten used to the smaller close-knit group of friends Azula has taken to be the core founding group of the business, she is surprised when other agents show up to lend a helping hand, or meet with Aang and Zuko to discuss other operations they’re heading. It’s an entire network of people who seem to have the same hero complex as her brother, and it’s confounding and strangely…intriguing.

At the end of the week, Zuko pronounces their work on the corner store neighborhood officially completed. He holds a bonfire on the beach to celebrate, and Azula allows herself—reluctantly—to be dragged along, to drink with them, to listen to terrible music coming from Sokka’s phone dropped in a plastic cup, to get wrapped up in blankets and toast to stupid things like friendship and hard work and god knows what else. Azula isn’t listening. Really, she isn’t. It doesn’t fill her with a strange warmth when Katara clinks beers with her, or when Toph punches her shoulder ina confusing show of camaraderie, or when Aang hugs her, or Zuko ruffles her hair. None of that fazes her for a second. Not at all.

She stumbles home with Suki for once, not waiting until her brother—or her brother and Sokka if he’s staying over—to fall asleep before sneaking off. Just goes straight home with her without a thought. Lets Suki push her against the door once it's closed behind them, kissing her for a moment, then separating from her with a smile.

“You seemed happy tonight,” she says.

Azula blinks at her in surprise. Then she shrugs up a shoulder. “I don’t have to keep hammering things anymore, of course I’m happy,” she says.

Suki bites her lip, then brings Azula’s hand up to her lips, kisses the thumb Azula made the repeat mistake of hammering several times in the beginning. She sucks it into her mouth for a moment before letting go and lifting back up to kiss her lips again.

Azula feels Suki slip her fingers into the belt loops of her jeans, using them to pull her flush against her even as she breaks the kiss, bending back just enough to keep out of reach of her lips.

“I want to try something,” she tells Azula. “And you can stop me, or tell me no, whatever you want. But I just want to try.”

Interest very much piqued, Azula nods, following her slowly as Suki makes her way over to her bed and draws out that fucking box of toys. That will never cease to be amusing to Azula that Suki just…has this collection of things to play with. Endlessly curious, that’s another thing she likes about Suki, likes it so much she doesn’t have words for it.

Given Suki’s hesitance, Azula sort of expects her to go for something they haven’t tried yet. Instead, she draws out the choker, and some rope—par for the course these days, honestly. She drops both on the bed, crooking her finger playfully to signal that Azula is to help her take off her clothes.

Azula smirks and obeys, allowing Suki to get her out of her shirt in return. Stripped and satisfied, Suki scoops up the choker and rope wordlessly, handing them to Azula to put on her. Azula loves that Suki knows not to put them on herself, loves that she knows the whole point is that _Azula_ gets to put them on her.

Azula takes her time with the choker, toys with it, tugs at it, can’t help how much she likes the way it looks on Suki. But when she goes to bind Suki’s hands in front of her, Suki angles away from her, uttering a small sound of disapproval. She turns so that her back is facing Azula, holding her hands out behind her, and Azula, somewhat cautiously now, binds her wrists behind her as indicated.

When Suki turns back around to face her, her cheeks are flushed. Azula can almost feel her heart pounding, even without touching her.

“I know you don’t like not having control,” Suki says. “And I don’t ever want to take that away from you.” She steps into her, taking a moment to nose at her neck, her ear, before continuing. “But I can feel how close you get sometimes, and it drives me fucking crazy.”

Her lips are on Azula’s neck, and Azula hisses, hands going reflexively to Suki’s hips, gripping hard.

“I don’t want to take anything from you,” Suki says again. “You can keep every little bit of control over me you want. Use me however you need, I won’t touch if you don’t want me to, just…I just want to see you come. I want…some part of you.”

Alarm bells are going off in the back of Azula’s mind, but at the same time, much more forcefully, she feels arousal roaring like wildfire through her body.

“Stop me if you don’t like it,” Suki continues. “But please let me try.” She presses her lips softly to her neck. “Tell me what you want.”

She angles in to kiss her, but Azula stops her with a hand at her throat. Suki’s eyes fly to hers, and Azula applies a little more pressure, holding her gaze. At Suki’s small whimper, she closes her fingers tighter and dips in, kissing her in a way that ensures her dominance over her. Suki’s knees buckle threateningly, and Azula smiles against her in spite of herself, catching her lower lip between her teeth, arm wrapping around her waist to keep her from slipping.

She pulls away, one hand coming up to cradle Suki’s cheek, looking her over, finding it pretty fucking impossible to refuse her.

“Get on your knees,” she says quietly.

Suki’s cheeks flush and she looks like Azula just gave her the greatest gift in the world. With a small involuntary sound of pleasure, Suki sinks down to her knees, gazing up at her with those wide, stormy blue eyes. Azula threads her fingers through her hair, pushing it out of her face, and Suki takes it upon herself to begin kissing up the seam of her jeans. She gives Azula one last look before turning her attention to the task in front of her, working the button of her pants open with her mouth, dragging the zipper down with her teeth.

In between her growing arousal, Azula can’t help but huff a bit of a laugh. Fucking showoff. That was completely unnecessary.

And so fucking hot.

Suki is nipping at the soft flesh just above her popped-open fly. Azula bites down hard on her lip, muscles in her core clenching, fingers curling in her hair, guiding her movements, somehow managing simply by touch to communicate she wants her to be gentler, to use lips instead of teeth. Suki’s immediate response and obedience fills her with a rush of confidence, and she delves her fingers deeper in Suki’s hair, holding tighter. She can use her however she wants. Suki told her she could. Her hands are bound and helpless behind her, she’s offering herself freely to be whatever Azula wants from her.

Azula pulls her away, looks down at her, takes in those big dark eyes, the flush of her skin. She lets go of her, but keeps her from moving with nothing more than a look, stripping herself the rest of the way out of her pants and underwear.

Suki seems unable to stop herself from leaning forward, stopping herself at Azula’s hip, not pushing her boundaries just yet.

Azula sits down on the edge of the bed, spreading her legs for her. She doesn’t give the okay for Suki to get too close yet, and Suki seems to sense that. She leans in and kisses the insides of her thighs instead, sighing against her. She lifts her gaze to Azula’s face, searching her eyes pleadingly for permission.

Azula hesitates for a moment, aware that her breath is coming out in broken hitches, heat high in her cheeks. Then her fingers return to Suki’s hair and she nods.

Her eyes close at the first touch of Suki’s tongue licking a searing hot path from entrance to clit. She hears herself moan, flushes in humiliation at the sound, but Suki’s answering whimper reassures her. She opens her eyes to see the flex of Suki’s shoulders as her hands twist restlessly behind her back, wanting to touch but unable to. The sight of Suki somehow still more helpless than herself lets her feel more in control again, and she lets her fingers flex and pull more coaxingly in Suki’s hair, letting her know it’s okay to continue.

Suki, a little _too_ encouraged, starts working her up with a surprising, almost alarming expertise, and Azula clutches the edge of the bed hard to keep herself grounded. Too much. After years of nothing but her own hands, and contact specifically designed never to give her anything more than a tease, this much attention is almost overwhelming, and her grip on Suki’s hair tightens.

“Slow,” she breathes out, and Suki instantly eases up on her. Azula relaxes her hold, returning to her more encouraging flex and and pull, and Suki follows her lead. “Slow,” she murmurs again without meaning to, feeling her senses begin to spin with this softer control.

She doesn’t want to fall apart the way she’s made so many others fall apart. _Loosening_ control…with Suki, she might be able to, but not losing it completely. Slow and controlled. That, she can handle.

She guides Suki’s movements through touch, pleasure rippling through her core at how well Suki listens, how attentive she is. Suki on the receiving end of things can be demanding, occasionally greedy. On the giving end of things, she exists only for Azula. Especially like this. Allowing her time to get used to her, time to get used to letting someone else give her what she wants.

Azula hooks one leg over Suki’s shoulder, slowly pulling her in closer, and Suki makes this sound like she’s in fucking heaven. The overwhelming mixture of lust and just plain _joy_ Suki is emanating sends Azula’s heart skyward, and she arches back with a sharp inhale, letting her control slip just a notch further, letting Suki consume every inch of her—lets her consume her thoughts, too, lets her burn away words of warning, of vows to never lose control, not ever, not unless you want to lose the things you cherish—lose the _people_ you cherish…

Suki somehow silences all those thoughts in her, draws the world into just this moment, bringing Azula to that perilous edge of ecstasy, but lets Azula have the final say. Lets Azula use her exactly how she needs her, and Azula has the briefest moment of lucidity to form the thought that she’s never felt so understood as she does right now, before finally letting herself go completely, letting herself be swept up in the tide.

She comes with a sharp gasp, hitching in desperate snatches of air that burn her throat and send pleasure scorching through her, twisting deep in her core as Suki works her through her orgasm with a soft tongue. Azula almost stays silent, but is unable to contain a broken keen as the last of her aftershocks roll through her.

She breathes herself slowly back down to normal, feeling comfortable warmth flood through every inch of her body, setting every molecule on fire and humming with life. When she finally feels like she has full control over her senses, she pulls Suki forward, circling her hands around her so she can untie her wrists.

Suki moans gratefully once her hands are free, and allows herself to be pulled up on the bed with Azula, allows herself to be pushed down and held down as Azula lays out on top of her, senses spiking like electricity with leftover jolts of pleasure.

She looks down at Suki, and uses her thumb to swipe her arousal from her lips, not quite ready to indulge in tasting herself from the lips of someone else. She gazes down at Suki, who seems very much to have stars in her eyes, and feels overwhelmingly happy all of a sudden. She feels whole, somehow. Suki let her keep control. Let things be quiet. Let her stay intact.

She did actually have every intention of coming back to Suki’s tonight and being as rough and wild with her as she’s growing so accustomed to the last few weeks. Just that was enough to exhaust her though, almost more emotionally than anything, and she settles down against her, kissing her jaw, her neck, nuzzling comfortably into her hair.

“So…not too bad, right?” Suki utters, and it’s just a little bit smug, and Azula bites her with a smile, drawing a surprised hiss from her lips.

“You really are trouble, aren’t you,” she murmurs, not for the first time, very likely not for the last.

*

Uncertainty wells up in her when she wakes up the following morning. Suki’s head on her chest almost keeps it tamped down, but not completely.

As quietly as she can, she shifts out of Suki’s hold, careful not to wake her. She looks down at her, trails her gaze over every inch of her, every curve, every line, everything she’s gotten to know so well. She has occasionally looked at her and had the word _mine_ surface to the front of her thoughts, and it’s been a possessive thought. She would think _mine to corrupt, mine to ruin, mine to control._

Right now, the word _mine_ does surface, but it’s softer. Now she looks at her and thinks _mine to take care of, mine to keep safe, mine to make happy._

She replays last night in her head, how good it felt, how it felt both dangerous and safe, Suki seeming to love every second of it. Suki telling her she could use her however she needed, wanting to give her both control and the safety to loosen her grip just a little.

Carefully, she crawls over Suki, pushing her legs open and straddling her thigh. She gives an experimental roll of her hips, pleasure flickering to life at the pressure, heart pounding as Suki stirs slightly. She shifts against her again, letting herself feel the way that friction coaxes her arousal into something deeper, feeling slickness gathering between her own thighs.

Suki stirs again, and Azula leans forward, kissing her neck softly and beginning to grind down cautiously, rhythmically, working herself up against her. She feels Suki awaken, hears that little sound of surprise turn into a pleased moan when she realizes what Azula’s doing. She seems to know instinctively not to touch, hands grasping at the sides of her pillow instead, but she shifts her hips up in time with Azula’s movements to give Azula more pressure to grind down against.

Azula palms needily at her breast, rolling her nipple to hardness, keeps her head buried in Suki’s neck as she finally pushes herself over the edge, coming with a hiss and a small, satisfied hum. It’s partially humiliating, partially thrilling, overwhelmingly addictive, and she sinks back down against Suki, quickly getting control over her breathing before finally lifting her head to look down at her.

Suki stretches comfortably under her, a teasing smile playing at her lips as she gazes up at her.

“Well good morning to you, too,” she says, voice husky from sleep, and Azula actually feels herself blush, a full-body blush, something she doesn’t think she’s done since she was a _child,_ maybe not even then.

Azula rolls off of her onto her back, startled by her own embarrassment, trying to put distance between them before Suki notices.

Suki follows her, though, nuzzling against her and resting her head on her chest again, tangling their legs together. “You’re so fucking hot when you come,” she mumbles against her. “Can’t believe you’ve been holding out on me for so long. Doesn’t seem fair.”

Azula chuckles, but it’s uncomfortable, and she tenses. “Well count yourself lucky,” she says, trying to tease, but not quite hitting the notes right. “You’re one of only two to see it.”

“Mhm,” Suki hums, like she already knew that. She lifts her head, looking at her carefully. “You don’t quite sound happy,” she observes.

“I am,” Azula says, and means it, surprises herself by how much she means it. “It’s just…gonna take some time getting used to.”

Suki presses a kiss to her chest. “That’s okay,” she says. “Take all the time you need.” She nuzzles into her again, playing with her fingers for a time, seeming lost in thought. “Did you love her?" she asks after a long moment. "The other girl who got to see you like this? Ty Lee, I'm assuming.”

Azula starts to answer, but Suki cuts her off, adding, “And don’t give me that line about love not being real. I know you too well for that, Azula.”

Azula huffs, feeling somehow both amused and a little trapped. “Why should that matter?” she asks, one hand wandering down to squeeze at Suki’s hip. “Why do you always want to bring up other people? Are you jealous?”

“No, actually,” Suki says. She sounds serious, voice soft. She grazes her teeth over Azula’s skin. “I like knowing that you’ve been in love before.”

“Okay, but why _,_ though?” Azula asks. “I’m with you, aren’t I? Why does anyone else matter so much to you?”

Suki puts her hand on Azula’s chest, over her heart. “Because I’m curious about this,” she says quietly, tracing her finger over it. “I’m curious about what it’s gone through. What it’s endured. I want to know all the things that made it violent, everything that made it gentle.”

“But _why?”_

Suki gazes at her for a long time, then sits up slowly, an uncomfortable frown darkening her features. “Why do you think, Azula?” she murmurs, reaching for her shirt and beginning to pull it on over her head.

Azula stares at the curve of her back, almost sits up to reach for her, grasp her wrist, wants to pull her back down, but she’s interrupted by the violent buzzing of Suki’s phone.

Suki tugs the hem of her shirt down and scoops the phone up, and Azula lays back against the mattress, confused and frustrated.

It’s Zuko on the other end of the line. New developments, more dire than before, apparently.

Suki and Azula finish dressing in silence.

*

It isn’t good. Jet has vanished. Which is to say, he’s been more and more absent lately, but the last few days, he seems to have disappeared off the map completely, and in those few days…there’s really no other way to word it…the dam has broken.

Violence has officially expanded past the confines of what happened at the Boiling Rock and the sporadic bursts of warfare in disputed territories, spilling out into the city proper. Like he said, word of mouth—planting the right seeds in the right people’s minds—has finally pushed through the last remaining Clan laws. He was true to his word. He set up exactly what he needed in order to get the Clans to begin destroying themselves from the inside. It just took them longer than he thought it would.

Azula recognizes names and faces splashed across news outlets throughout the city. Not just low level grunts, but prominent crime bosses and their families. Some killed in broad daylight.

She and Zuko go over the evidence obsessively, fitting together what Jet had said would happen. It seems almost hopeless, and Azula’s feelings of hopelessness amplify all the more when evening falls, and Suki has already left.

She tells herself not to go to her apartment, not to push, when she obviously screwed something up this morning. She stays the night at Zuko’s, resolute and managing to keep the more desperate of her churning thoughts at bay. She’s up early in the morning, waiting for the rest of their group to arrive, and uncertainty wriggles under her skin even further when Suki still doesn’t show.

When evening falls again and there’s still no word or sign from Suki, concern takes solid root in Azula’s gut. She may have screwed up yesterday, but Suki wouldn’t let something like that hinder her _work._

Throwing caution to the wind, Azula takes Zuko’s car to Suki’s apartment, making her way carefully to her room.

Her heart drops into her stomach when she sees the door—splintered up the side and lock broken.

“Suki?” she utters, voice hoarse as she pushes the door open. The room is dark and still, Azula feels the horrible emptiness of it even before she switches on the light to be sure. The second the room is illuminated, panic seizes hold of her.

Signs of a struggle are everywhere—the covers on Suki’s bed have been dragged to the floor, lamps shattered against the wood paneling, the coffee table upended. Azula’s stomach lurches at the sight of blood smeared against the wall.

“Suki?” she calls again, voice higher this time, desperation sweeping over her. She searches the room frantically, knowing it’s pointless because the place is so stupidly fucking small, there’s nowhere to hide.

Her heart is pounding in her throat by the time her eyes fall on the large brown envelope resting on Suki’s pillow, and she picks it up with shaking hands. There’s something hard and rectangular inside, but her fingers close first around a small white card.

She knows, because she’s seen his handwriting a million times before, that it’s Zhao’s. He was prone to writing warnings to those who had crossed him in the past, those he would soon be snuffing out. The memory of those written warnings sends dread pounding through every inch of her, but the message scrawled across this particular piece of plain white paper chills her to her very core.

 _Come and get her,_ it says.


	20. Chapter 20

When Suki wakes, it’s to the toe of a boot digging into her ribcage, and the taste of blood in her mouth. Blood, and the dull filth of a cloth gag that’s been forced between her teeth.

She grunts as the boot rolls her over onto her back, forcing the breath from her lungs, sending panic shooting through her. She jerks, trying to get away from that boot, only to find that her wrists are tied behind her, arms pinned to the floor by her own body, keeping her from being able to move beyond a pathetic squirm.

She draws strangled breaths as best she can through the gag, heart hammering so hard she can hear the rush of her pulse in her ears, eyes searching the darkness frantically. The room is small and shadowed, no windows, no sign of any light at all save for a single naked bulb dangling from the ceiling. And above her, partially silhouetted by the lightbulb, is a man.

He crouches down as she sputters awake, helping her sit up, hands rough and painful on her skin. Her head swims as she’s guided upright and she feels her stomach churn.

“There she is,” the man says, voice low and graveled, a deceptive calm to his tone. He grips her chin, forcing her to look at him. When she does, his thumb brushes with false concern over a stinging cut at her jaw, making it sting all the more. “You’ve been out so long, we were starting to get worried. I told my men to keep you alive, but you know how these things go sometimes. It’s what happens when you work with the Rough Rhinos. They live up to the name.”

Memories from the night before slam into her skull, like they needed his permission to break loose from their protective cage, and Suki feels her whole body jerk involuntarily in pain, senses reeling.

Three, she thinks. There were three of them that broke into her apartment the night before ( _was_ it the night before? She realizes she doesn’t know how long it’s been). It had felt like a dream even then, couldn’t be happening, it couldn’t. She was dragged from her bed, too many hands on her. She knows she grabbed hold of something, something heavy—a lamp, she thinks—brought it down on the head of one of them, shattering it. She remembers twisting free for one fleeting moment, kicking out to send one of them careening into the coffee table. She remembers the howls of pain, remembers the blows to her stomach she received in return. She remembers the thick muscled arm that tried to encircle her throat, remembers the horrible taste as she bit down on it as hard as she could, teeth ripping at the skin so hard he bled. She remembers the fingers delving into her hair, yanking her head back, tearing her mouth from him. Remembers being tossed like a ragdoll against the wall, shelves coming down around her. Remembers the heavy fist that pounded into her ribcage, and the stab of a needle in her shoulder that plunged her into darkness.

“Let’s get a good look at you,” the man in front of her says, pulling her from her swimming memories. She gives a muffled cry of pain as he hoists her to her feet, guiding her to the center of the room where a metal chair sits beneath the naked lightbulb.

She winces as he settles her down onto it, trying and utterly failing to wriggle free of his hold as he slips her arms over the back of the chair to keep her held tight and upright to attention. She squints into the light to try to see him clearer, even as he turns and melts into the shadows. Her vision is bleary and she wonders what they shot her full of that took her senses down so completely. Even now, her muscles don't feel completely under her control. She cringes at the sound of metal scraping against concrete as the man drags a second chair from somewhere unseen to join her in the small circle of yellow light provided by the naked bulb. He settles himself down in his chair across from her, leaning forward to bring them knee to knee, taking in the sight of her.

“Lucky girl, they left your face alone for the most part,” he observes after a moment.

Sure as fuck doesn’t feel that way.

He seems to read that particular thought, and smiles, reaching forward to swipe his thumb over a cut on her left cheekbone, making her flinch.

“No, I’d say most of this was your own doing,” he laughs. “Ogodei tells me you broke a lamp over Kahchi’s head, got yourself thrown into a bookcase…got glass all over the place. All over yourself, too. Look at that.” He leans one hand on his thigh, angling her head with the other to take a good look at the various cuts her struggle with them had landed her.

“I would’ve loved to see it,” the man says. “Some of these boys need to be knocked around a bit, teach them some humility.”

He finally lets go of her chin, shifting forward to lean his elbows on his knees so he can remain eye to eye with her rather than looming above her. It doesn’t diminish her fear—if anything, it’s more intimidating that he remains so close.

“I suppose some introductions are in order,” he says. “I’m sure you already know, given all the cat and mouse games your people have been up to, but my name is Zhao. And _you,_ I take it, are Azula’s newest plaything. And my meal ticket. It’s Suki, right?”

Suki stares at him, anger swelling up in her to hear him say Azula’s name, fast enough that it twists around her fear, flaring painfully in her chest. Azula. Where is Azula? If he’s gotten to her, hurt her in any way… Suki lurches forward as far as her bonds will let her—admittedly not much more than an inch—ready to try to rip his throat out with her teeth.

“My god, look at those eyes!” Zhao says with a laugh, completely unconcerned by her pathetic attempt. “Don’t know that I’ve ever truly had someone stare _daggers_ at me before. You’re a wild little thing, aren’t you. That’s good. It’ll make things all the better.”

He looks over toward the shadowed walls, lifting a hand and gesturing to something hidden in the darkness there. “Mongke,” he says.

Suki jumps as another man comes forward—hadn’t been aware there was anyone else in the room, is now horrified by the idea that there could be dozens more surrounding her, unseen. The man—Mongke, she assumes—comes bearing what looks to be an old camcorder. He walks stiffly, and the fingers of his left hand are bandaged and splinted, like they were recently broken.

Zhao notices her looking and nods with a pleased smile. “Yeah, you did that,” he tells her, like he’s encouraging her, like he’s proud of her. “Nearly shattered Ogodei’s jaw while you were at it, I hear. I’m impressed.”

His praise is like nails on a chalkboard, and she cuts her gaze back to him, trying to summon the same courage and ferocity that had allowed her to fight back the night before. Instead, she just feels trapped.

Zhao holds his hand out to accept the camcorder from Mongke. “Excuse the old school technology,” he says to Suki, giving her a wink. “We’re on a low budget. Did you know, it is damn fucking hard to run an empire. Damn fucking _expensive._ Sort of a nasty fucking shock, let me tell you.”

He turns the camcorder on, popping open the viewer and focusing on Suki. Suki squirms, feeling suddenly violated, like the lens is somehow running unwanted fingers all over her.

“Ah! Perfect,” Zhao proclaims, clapping the other man on the shoulder and showing him what Suki knows is her face displayed on the viewer. “What’d I tell you—it’s the eyes, isn’t it. Gorgeous.”

He snaps the viewer shut and hands the camcorder back to Mongke, gesturing behind him. “Set that up over there, will you?” He turns back to Suki with a dangerous smile. “In the meantime, you and I can have a chat about what we’re going to be doing today.”

Suki hears her own voice muffle against the gag in her mouth before she’s even realized what she’s going to say.

Zhao cups a hand to his ear. “What was that?” he asks.

Suki tries again, throat burning from the effort, anger and humiliation writhing like snakes in her gut.

Zhao humors her, leaning forward and tugging the gag free from her mouth.

Suki pulls in a pained breath of relief, even as panic continues to constrict her chest.

“She marked me,” she says as forcefully as she can, eyes wide and urgent, searching him for any sign of understanding, of pity. “Azula marked me. Your Clan law…you can’t hurt me.”

Zhao frowns, considering this. “Where did she mark you?” he asks.

“My hip,” Suki tells him, hating the broken hoarseness of her voice.

Zhao leans forward further, hands going to her sides. They’re too big and they’re too rough and they linger too long, splaying downward before slipping under the hem of her shirt and lifting it up enough to check. Suki shudders against him as he runs his thumb over the burn mark, his other hand snaking to her back, pulling her hips forward so he can get a better look at it.

“Looks like it hurt,” he remarks after a moment, returning his gaze to her face, but keeping his thumb circling the mark in a way that makes her stomach churn, panic spiking more frenetically through her. “Sort of ironic, her claiming to keep you safe only after she’s already burned herself into you. Hurts you to protect you. I never did understand that.”

He lets her go finally, sitting back in his chair, regarding her with a spark to his eye. She feels rough heat everywhere his hands were, feels the lingering presence crawling under her skin.

“I’m glad you brought that up, though,” he tells her, nodding at the still-exposed mark. “It’s relevant to what we’re doing here. Having said that—I should probably preface this by saying that mark’s worthless here. That whole marking system…it’s Sozin family sentimentality. They’re an emotional bunch, even Ozai. You wouldn’t guess it, but he had the occasional fit of passion, just like the rest of them. Of course his resulted in the scarring of his son, and the death of his wife, but still. They all have their favorite people, the ones they imprint on, fancy themselves having various feelings for. Unfortunately for you…” Zhao leans forward again, fitting the gag easily back into her mouth even as she tries to struggle away from him, “…the Fire Clan is no longer under Sozin family rule. It’s under my rule. And that mark, I’m afraid, doesn’t mean jack shit to me.”

Suki feels despair sink low in her gut, making her feel like she’s suddenly lost her footing, has tripped and plummeted into some bottomless dark hole.

Zhao has returned to leaning back in his chair, arms crossing over his broad chest. “Now here’s why I’m glad you brought that up,” he says. “Like I said, it’s damn fucking hard running an empire, and damn fucking expensive. Turns out, the Clan’s got more loyalists to the family name than I’d planned on. Got a whole council of Ozai’s most trusted partners, half of them refuse to answer to new leadership as long as there’s an heir to the Sozin name. Go fucking figure. Ozai’s out of the picture, of course. Ursa’s dead. Iroh’s son is dead. Iroh himself, disgraced and disowned, same as Zuko. But that still leaves us with Azula. Azula, who apparently got out of the Boiling Rock alive. And Ozai’s more _difficult_ council members know that. Guess what that makes me. Chopped fucking liver to some, a traitor to others.”

He shifts, holding up his index finger. “So that’s problem number one for me. Half the Clan, half of what should have been mine won fairly through blood, refuses to fall in line as long as Azula is still breathing. Forget about all the pointless scuffles between the Four Families, the whole Fire Clan’s at war with _itself_ as long as she’s alive, from the lowest, most expendable grunts, to the oldest and most prominent initiates.”

He holds up a second finger. “Here’s problem number two: that old saying about having to spend money to make money? Hits the nail on the head. Ozai’s plans for the Element X market involved the purchasing of more property than has been attempted before. Now, he took care of the purchasing, but the upkeep? The repurposing of each facility? The transition, the installation, the damages? Not to mention the allocation of funds to our mixers, our transporters, our distributers, our enforcers. It was a risky plan to put to work in the first place, but Ozai had the means for it—not just in institutions, but in liquid form. Of course, after his arrest, whatever funds he had in the bank were frozen, some seized. As for his estate…well, you saw what happened there. Call it a moment of carelessness on my part. My own fit of passion.

“Long story short,” Zhao continues, “in trying to enact Ozai’s monopoly without his considerable source of funding, the Clan as a whole is being run into the ground. That’s to say nothing of the expenses I’m having to shovel out to support this latest bout of inter-Clan warfare. Dare I say that we, as a business, are going bankrupt.”

He smiles wryly. “Of course, Ozai would never be so foolish as to keep the bulk of his wealth in the bank,” he says. “And you can be damn fucking sure I searched every corner of his estate after his arrest for any evidence of a vault, anywhere he could be hiding his real wealth. And I can tell you…not a fucking penny.

“But I know, because it was half the reason Ozai had me put a bullet in her brain, that Ursa was in control of his finances for years,” he continues. “I know there’s a chain of illegal offshore accounts Ozai has drawn from to keep his operations afloat over the past several decades. It’s where the real money is. But he isn’t exactly reachable at the moment to get access from. Iroh and the boy are clueless. And Ursa, who kept those accounts so well-hidden and so fucking immaculate, is long dead. So that leaves Azula. If anyone has access to those accounts, it’s her. It’s a crapshoot, of course. Ursa wanted out of the business not long after Zuko was born, and the likelihood of her telling Azula about those accounts before I put a hole in her head…hard to say. But there’s at least a chance Ozai might have told her.

“So you see my conundrum,” Zhao goes on, jerking his hands in a performative gesture of musing. “If I want the Clan’s allegiance, Azula has to die by my hand. But if I want the Clan’s continued _existence_ , I need access to the Sozin family’s offshore accounts, information only Azula possesses.”

He leans forward, locking eyes with Suki, expression dark. “Now I hope you’ve been paying attention, because this is where you come in,” he tells her. “My rise to power hinges completely on Azula, but because of you and your friends, I haven’t been able to get to her. She’s under constant watch from your people, and I mean _constant,_ I’m not sure even _you_ are aware of the measures your company has taken to keep her from me. The _only_ time any of my people have seen her alone is when she stops off at your apartment in the dead of night. Which has become more and more frequent of late.”

Suki hates the smile twisting at the corners of his lips, hates it more than she’s ever hated anything in her entire life.

“I can’t get to her,” he continues, “so I need her to come to me, and you’re the only bait that might actually get her to come out willingly. I’ve known Azula since she was a child. She’s as cold as they come, Ozai did well with her. Kept Ursa away from her, kept Iroh away from her, and Zuko…well, Zuko kept himself away from her. She was brought up purely in Ozai’s image, and that’s served her well. Her flaws are few and far between, but those she does have…” he sucks his teeth. “Catastrophic.”

He smiles, wagging his finger at Suki. “Lucky for me, _you_ seem to be one of those flaws, and an awfully deadly one at that,” he says. “I’ve had my people on you for weeks. You know, I think I’ve seen Azula smile more in these last few weeks than I’ve seen in her entire life. Truly, truly touching stuff.”

He slaps his thighs. “So. To reiterate—I need Azula. I need her here. I need the information she has to get to her father’s offshore accounts. And then I need her dead. Otherwise the entire Clan is done for. Probably won’t come as a shock to you, but our Azula is not the most cooperative of people. Headstrong, cold-hearted, and terrified of everything around her. You’ve noticed that, haven’t you? The fear in her?”

Suki trembles in silent rage.

“The whole Sozin family suffers from it,” Zhao says. “Violent but terrified of their own shadows. I’ve been around since the beginning to see it all. The whole family operates on fear, Azula more than any of them, absolutely brimming with it. It’s almost a little sad to think she got brave enough to step out of her father’s shadow for two seconds only to get her heart stolen, and in due time, destroyed. You weakened her more than an entire city of warring Clans could. Look at you. It’s like you were built _just_ for me to be able to take her down.”

Suki lunges forward with all her strength—this time, enough to slip her hands over the back of the chair to propel herself at him with all her might, teeth bared, the thought of losing Azula so overwhelming it gives her a rush of power she didn’t know she still had.

It isn’t enough. Zhao is on his feet too quickly for her to make contact, his heavy hand clamping around her throat and forcing her back down into her seat. She gives a muffled shout as he backhands her across the face, forcing her head to snap to the side, cheek throbbing with pain. She pants through it, drawing what air she can through the gag as he secures her wrists tighter than before. He stares down at her, eyes hard enough to bore holes straight through her.

“It’s a massive undertaking, to get someone to give up _everything_ they possess, from their legacy, to their fortune, to their survival,” Zhao growls, face scarlet from their brief struggle. “But with the right leverage…for example…the endless suffering of one of the only people they truly cherish…I’m hoping you can see where I’m going with this.”

He turns, striding over to the camcorder Mongke set up on a tripod at the edge of their little circle of light. He turns it on, popping open the viewer again, and focusing the lens on Suki, playing with the angle until he seems satisfied.

“The Sozin family isn’t known for giving up without a fight,” he says, sounding like he’s calmed himself down somewhat. “Not unless there’s something worth giving up for. Now who knows—maybe I’ve overestimated Azula’s attachment to you. Maybe she’s just as cold as her father made her. Maybe she won’t give a second thought to your disappearance. But I doubt it.

“Which brings us—finally—to what you and I will be doing today. One way or another, Azula will come to me. One way or another, Azula will get me access to those accounts. One way or another, Azula will be killed. But it’s her choice whether these things will happen with me setting you free, or me tormenting you until your last breath.”

Suki feels terror flood her senses, cold sweat erupting across her body.

“To make certain she knows how serious I am,” Zhao says, “I’m going to need to provide her with proof of the lengths I’m willing to go to.” He taps the camcorder. “So you and I are going to make a little film today to demonstrate. It will be delivered to her, along with an explanation of my expectations from her cooperation-wise, and if you and I are very lucky, she’ll do as she’s told. She’ll come to your rescue.”

A boiling hot tear streaks down Suki’s face at the cruelty of the word _rescue,_ and she can only stare up at him in silent, agonizing fury, straining helplessly at her bonds.

His lips twitch in a cold smile at her expression and he comes forward, taking up his seat again in front of her. He looks her over thoughtfully, eyes lingering at her mouth before he reaches for her.

“There are a lot of ways we could do this,” he muses. “Some, I think, would be especially effective considering the nature of her feelings for you. Certain things might inspire her to get here faster.” He’s stroking her throat with the backs of his fingers and Suki thinks she’s going to be sick, stomach twisting and heart pounding against her throat. The pressure forces those burning tears to gather more threateningly in her eyes, and she hates those worst of all, hates that terror has her in a stranglehold, that her breath is coming in painful gasps and shudders, that she’s been reduced to something so helpless.

But Zhao shrugs abruptly, letting her go and getting to his feet. “Then again,” he says, “that’s an awfully bold way to start. Might not be worth the mess.”

Suki is humiliated that she almost feels the need to collapse from his words, to cry from relief, as if he just showed her _mercy_ somehow.

Her cold relief is short-lived anyway as Zhao gestures again at something in the shadows. The man from before now brings forth a small trove of iron rods, all glowing anywhere from red to white-hot at their tips, curved and twisted into emblems and designs favored by the Fire Clan. Suki’s breath catches, and she instinctively straightens back in the chair, trying to put as much distance between herself and those iron brands as possible.

“Anyway,” Zhao is saying, selecting one of them and holding it up to inspect. “Probably best if I stay on brand to begin with, if you’ll pardon the pun.” He gestures toward her hip. “Think it’s about time we add to what’s already been given to you. The Fire Clan is known for its generosity, after all.”

He presses the record button on the camcorder, the resulting, horrifyingly cheerful _ping_ sending icy tendrils of terror wriggling through her.

“Now,” Zhao murmurs. “Let’s begin, shall we?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...So...on a happier(?) note, I should be able to start updating a little more frequently, hoping for 2-3 updates per week instead of 1 (she said, hoping she didn't just jinx herself...)


	21. Chapter 21

Azula and Sokka haven’t exactly made their mutual hatred for each other _subtle._ Snide remarks and casual threats of bodily harm are frequent, and distrust runs rampant in their every encounter. On exactly one topic, however, they form a completely united front, and that’s how to deal with Zhao for what he’s done to Suki.

In their words: "Gonna fucking kill him."

In any other situation, Zuko might actually be happy that the love of his life and his somewhat rehabilitated sister were starting to bond. Unfortunately, their bonding means stocking up on weapons and discussing loudly and in detail the best way to flay and/or disembowel someone.

The way they learn about what happened to Suki is like being pitched headlong into a nightmare. Zuko is woken up in the middle of the night by the sound of car tires screeching across his driveway, and a loud _crack_ and _thump_ , like maybe his mailbox has just been run over.

He springs out of bed in alarm, vaguely bemused by the fact that Sokka has slept blissfully through the din, continuing to snore away, arm flung over his face. When Zuko looks out the window, he sees that yes, a car has driven into his mailbox, and is currently skewed half on his driveway, half on his lawn. He rubs his eyes as it clicks in his brain that that’s _his_ car, and that the woman flying out of it and slamming the door behind herself is Azula.

Zuko is embarrassed to say that his first thought is that she must be drunk—maybe even somehow got her hands on some Element X, just because…well, that’s something the old Azula probably would do, just to be as spiteful and difficult as possible.

It becomes very clear she isn’t when she marches straight across the lawn toward the house. Zuko cranes his neck to see her approaching the front door, and grabs a shirt as he hears her begin pounding on it as hard as she can outside.

“Zuko!” she shouts, not letting up on the door. There’s a distinct note of panic in her voice, even from here, that puts him on high alert as he tugs his shirt the rest of the way down.

Sokka finally stirs awake on the bed, sitting up with a drowsy, “Wuzzat?”

Zuko doesn’t answer, instead pulling the bedroom door open and racing to the front door. The second it’s cracked even the first inch, Azula comes barreling through.

“Where’s the thing?” she demands. Her eyes are wild.

“What thing…?”

She holds up what looks like a disc closed in a hard rectangular case, getting on her knees in front of the TV and skirting her fingers frantically along the bottom.

“DVD player, you have one don’t you? Where’s the fucking remote?”

Sokka wanders in, cautious and drawn up tight, like he doesn’t know whether a fight is about to break out.

“Why the hell do you need a DVD player at this hour? What are you holding?”

“It was at Suki’s, stop asking me stupid questions!” She stares helplessly, then flings her arms up at the TV before wheeling on him, throwing one of the remotes at the floor in frustration. “Why is your fucking TV so fucking impossible to fucking figure out? Fuck’s _sake,_ Zuko, fix it!”

It’s the most desperate he’s ever seen her. Ever. Somehow worse than she was when she showed up on his doorstep that night after the Boiling Rock was burned down and Suki had been…

Oh fuck.

“…Where’s Suki?” Zuko asks, dread beginning to bubble up in him.

He feels Sokka become instantly more alert beside him, even as Azula holds his gaze, eyes frantic.

Zuko takes the case from her without a word, switching the TV on and fitting the disc in once he’s popped it free. He hears Sokka shuffle further into the room behind him, shoulders tightening at the panic he feels rising in him. Zuko’s always been hyper sensitive to the more intense feelings people give off, but Sokka especially, who’s _never_ been good at hiding his emotions, seems to give off a certain heat, a certain pressure that at this moment, is jagged and dangerous.

“What are you talking about, is something wrong with Suki?” Sokka demands, turning to Azula, and for once Azula doesn’t fire back with some smartass remark.

“I don’t know,” she says, and it’s hoarse and hushed and something in Zuko’s chest clenches at the sound of it. “I went to Suki’s and she wasn’t there, there was…looked like a break-in, and I found that…and a note from Zhao…”

Before Sokka can voice the tidal wave of questions Zuko knows is on the tip of his tongue, the TV screen pops to life and suddenly Zhao’s face leers above him.

A tense silence falls across the three of them and they back up and settle, as if on pins and needles, on the edge of the couch, eyes glued to the screen as Zhao begins to speak.

It’s civil, at first. Zhao is seated in a fairly nondescript office of some kind, and he calmly lays out what he expects from Azula if she ever plans on seeing Suki again. For a moment, the three of them are lulled into a precarious sense of relief—yes, he is demanding that Azula turn herself over to him to reveal the location and access to Ozai’s offshore accounts (“How the fuck would I know?” Azula snaps at the screen), but that seems to be _all_ he wants, and although he states clearly that Suki has been taken, there’s no indication that she’s come to any harm.

That is, until very suddenly, the shot changes.

All three of them sit forward simultaneously as the camera comes to focus inside the confines of a dimly-lit, seemingly underground room. The shot blurs in and out for a moment before finally focusing on its main subject—namely, Suki, gagged and bound to a metal chair in the center of the room. It zooms in close on her features, displaying a series of small cuts, scrapes, and an angry reddening mark high on her right cheek.

“Oh my god,” Sokka breathes. Zuko’s heart has taken up residence in his throat but he says nothing, and neither does Azula. Still, he can feel the way her panic spikes up to mirror—maybe even surpass—Sokka’s.

It’s the fear in Suki’s eyes that shakes Zuko the most. He’s never seen Suki scared before, not once. And she’s been through some shit. Both in her personal life, and in previous assignments he’s given her—Suki has never backed down from _anything._ She’s put her safety—her _life_ —at risk time and time again, but he’s never seen true terror written across her features until this very moment.

Terror…and knowing. She knows something they don’t know. Beyond just what Zhao has in store for her.

The three of them are subjected then, to what it is that Zhao _does_ have in store for her. First, Suki is hoisted up from the chair by a second man—Zuko recognizes him as Mongke, the leader of a minor gang his father occasionally called upon when he needed a job done that required brute force and intimidation. He’s had enough run-ins with the Rough Rhinos after being disowned to be very familiar with their tactics—they’ve featured heavily in several assignments Avatar Security has been involved in over the years.

The camera is adjusted so that Suki remains in focus, but panned back enough that they can see most of her body. Mongke has her trapped with one arm barring across her stomach, his other hand in her hair, keeping her head back, throat bared.

Zhao finally enters the shot, getting up in front of Suki, and his hands land heavily on her, tugging at the hem of her shirt. Zuko’s heart drops into his stomach. Zhao is pulling at Suki’s clothes, yanking them off completely with Mongke’s help to leave Suki to nothing but her underthings, and both Azula and Sokka are suddenly on their feet, Sokka uttering what seems to be an involuntary “No no no no no no…”

Suki twists furiously against Mongke’s hold on her, managing with what looks like great effort to lift both legs up and kick out, the force of the kick shoving Zhao into a stumble backwards. She drops her weight, then springs upward, managing to break Mongke’s hold on her, head coming up under his jaw.

Before she can make any more headway in her escape, Zhao surges back into the shot, fist coming forward to slug her in the gut. She doubles over with a grunt, and Mongke lunges forward to get her back in his grip as before. Weakened and likely reeling from the heavy blow to her stomach, Suki can do little more than squirm as Zhao approaches again, gesturing to someone seemingly behind the camera.

The shot jiggles as someone seems to pick the camera up, walking it forward so he can keep the focus on the action, rather than remaining stationary.

Zhao is now holding something in his hand, his expression on Suki one of fury.

“…already told you it wouldn’t be worth the mess,” he’s growling at her. “I need better access and we need to give our viewers at home a clearer shot. But keep trying my patience.”

Her struggling lessens ever so slightly at that, but her entire body continues to shake as he lifts up the object in his hand—a brand, one that bears one of the older Fire Clan seals meant for marking a person who has been disgraced.

Zuko knows that mark very well.

A horrible mix of both relief and anger descends upon the three of them at the reveal, and Sokka and Azula sit back down gingerly. Relief that their worst fears are not about to come true, but renewed anger at what Zhao _is_ going to do to her. The bare skin he’s exposed on her already shows a multitude of other bruises and minor cuts, likely from her initial abduction.

Suki makes another attempt at getting away from the brand, but weakened and trapped as she is, all she can do is back further against Mongke, trapping herself all the more.

“Where to start?” Zhao muses, then frowns as his gaze catches on something. “Think at the very least we can get rid of Azula’s mark, it’s not like it can save you now.”

He clamps his hand over Suki’s hip to keep her from being able to move, pressing the brand over the smaller raised burn scar on her side.

Suki shudders, a muffled grunt spilling forth, doing an admirable job of not buckling under the pressure. It's cold comfort. Zuko can't help but think that her more tempered reaction is because the abuse is over a mark already made, and the scar tissue is able to protect her from the full flood of pain she’d be experiencing if it was over entirely unmarred flesh. The outer edges of the brand that reach beyond the protective layer of scar tissue must be agonizing, and Zuko knows it’s through sheer force of will that Suki is able to stay as controlled as she is.

“Much better,” Zhao says as he draws the brand away from her side, and Suki sputters from pain, body heaving. The mark Azula gave her has indeed been mangled into something ugly and unrecognizable, the newly-bared skin surrounding the original mark now raw, peeling, and practically bubbling.

Zuko feels Azula stiffen beside him.

Zhao has the cameraman linger on the new mark, making absolutely certain the shot is clear, before having him lift the camera back up to Suki’s face to give them a good look at the pain twisted there. Sweat has broken across her skin, and what was once flushed in anger and effort has drained to an alarming white. Tear tracks can be seen through the grime on her face, but her eyes remain fierce and defiant, even as she draws panting breaths through the pain.

“Love those eyes,” Zhao comments, and he must give some unspoken directive to the cameraman, because he takes a step back to put Suki’s body on better display as he goes in again, beginning the agonizingly slow process of burning those marks elsewhere.

He adjusts his technique with each burn. Some light touches, others full contact, and others, worst of all, where he presses with all his might before twisting the brand slowly, ripping and utterly destroying the skin, almost down to the bone. Those break her. She screams.

Zuko knows that scream—that’s the same sound he made when he was 13 and the same thing was done to him. He remembers being held down, having that brand pressed into him, much larger than the one Zhao is now holding against Suki’s body. Ozai meant only to scar his cheek, so he’d see that mark of disgrace every time he looked in the mirror, but Zuko had, in all his squirming, dislodged the brand so that it twisted up over his eye as well, the mark itself no longer a recognizable symbol of disgrace, but a smear of burned skin, a shapeless mark he hated all his life until Sokka, who managed to convince him it was proof of his determination to fight back.

Suki’s ability to fight back has been utterly stripped from her, and she’s helpless to fend off the brutal assault.

It seems to go on for an eternity. Zuko and the others don’t look away, don’t try to turn it off, almost as if they need to keep watching in order to support Suki, to protect her, even though the deed is done already. Zuko clenches his fists until his arms shake, prays this leads to some clue as to where Zhao has her hidden, that this isn’t just an endless show of depravity leading nowhere.

Zhao doesn’t stop until he’s made a wide, curving wave of crimson peeling marks spreading from just below her breast down into the V of her hips, where he bears down hardest, doubling back and revisiting the original mark, twisting it even further, burning already boiling flesh, pulling a piercing shriek from Suki’s lips.

Finally finished, he tosses the brand to the floor, and sits himself down in the metal chair Suki had been sitting in before this all started, sweating and red-faced from the effort. He gestures to Mongke, who abruptly lets Suki go. She drops boneless toward the floor, caught at the last second by Zhao, who eases her the rest of the way down, cradling the side of her head to lean against his leg, stroking his fingers through her hair like she’s a favorite pet. Barely conscious from the pain, Suki doesn’t even attempt to shy away, body trembling and tears spilling silently.

Zuko feels Sokka shudder, hears him give a watery exhale, realizes he’s barely holding back tears. His best friend. Sokka just saw his best and oldest friend tormented right in front of his eyes. And Azula…

Azula may as well be frozen. She hasn’t moved an inch since Zhao’s destruction of the mark that was meant to protect Suki.

“This is simple stuff,” Zhao is saying to the camera—to Azula. “And Suki already knows the spiel, which would make it particularly unkind if you didn’t show. I’ll be bringing her to the power plant where Ozai was arrested tomorrow night. You’ll meet me there, alone, and you’ll offer yourself freely, along with the information on how to access the Sozin family accounts. If you _don’t_ know how to access them, I’m giving you the extra day to find out. Once here, I have to assume you know I can’t keep you alive, not if I want the Family to fall in line. All of this _will_ happen, as I’ve explained to Suki, whether you do so willing or not. The difference for you, is that your compliance will determine whether she goes free or not. The branding was an introduction. If you don’t show, we’ll move on to other methods. She’s got a lot of fight in her—but nothing a little bloodletting won’t take care of. Not to mention several other ways to break her, I’ll let you use your imagination for those. If you show up tomorrow night, alone, with the information I need, and a free surrender of your life, then these burns will be the last of her suffering, and she’ll be free to go. If not, the torment will be increased day by day, and you’ll get a new short film to view for each one that goes by.”

He gestures somewhere off-screen again, and one of the other Rough Rhinos comes forth with a needle.

“Little Element X treat for her,” he tells the camera as he sinks the needle slowly into the side of Suki’s neck. She barely flinches, slipping quickly out of consciousness. “Not the nice, floaty kind, mind you,” he adds. “Found this particular formula written up in the plans I was able to get out of the Catacombs. Ozai thought it had promise for other endeavors than recreation. Causes paranoia, nausea, maybe some hallucinations. Not a pretty picture. Not to worry, though. I’ll keep her alive. But just barely. I sincerely hope we’ll be seeing you at the power plant tomorrow night.”

The screen goes black.

The three of them are on their feet in an instant. Zuko looks first to Sokka, and yes, there are tears gathered in his eyes, but more than anything, he looks furious, a violence to his expression that Zuko has only ever seen small flickers of in past times when he’s felt someone he cares for is in danger. Now, Sokka looks not only willing, but capable of ripping a man in half with his bare hands.

Zuko looks to Azula next, and is struck by the strange clarity on her features. Where Sokka’s rage is explosive and tempestuous, Azula’s seems to be more of an electric charge growing slowly inside her, wayward arcs of electricity snapping free intermittently, but controlled. For now. Her expression is one of stone.

“Where do you keep them?” she asks.

“Keep what?”

“Weapons, Zuko. Guns. Knives. A fucking baseball bat for all I care. Anything.”

“I don’t just have an _arsenal_ tucked away in my _house,_ Azula—“

“He’s got a pistol in his sock drawer,” Sokka tells her, already making his way back to the bedroom. He points to the walls as he goes. “Edge weapons on display.”

Azula makes immediately for a pair of broadswords mounted on the wall.

“Those are decorative—“ Zuko tries.

“Long as they can be jammed through a body, they can be as decorative as they want,” Azula says, wrestling them free of their frame.

Sokka has returned with his pistol, and is now grabbing a barbed kanabo from its display on the opposite wall.

“That’s an ancient artifact—“ Zuko tries again.

“Does the job, who gives a shit,” Sokka says.

He and Azula continue to pick out a handful of other weapons, Azula actually handing Sokka the decorative boomerang he’d once threatened her with, and Sokka accepts it, some unspoken alliance forming between them. They turn as one, and Zuko strides quickly to the door, blocking their exit.

“Where…the fuck do you two think you’re going?” he demands incredulously.

“Where’s it fucking look like, we’re going to save Suki,” Sokka snaps.

“You don’t know where she is!” Zuko exclaims. “Were you paying attention at _all?_ Azula, you’re in heels—Sokka, you’re still in your fucking slippers. Where exactly are you and your two-person half-dressed army planning on going to _save Suki?_ Zhao’s keeping her somewhere hidden until you meet him at the power plant tomorrow night, are you planning on just breaking down every door in the city hoping one of them will lead to Suki?”

“No, I’m planning on finding the nearest Fire Clan initiate and working my way up the ladder until I find him,” Azula growls.

“We’re not _waiting_ until tomorrow night to get Suki, we’re getting her _now,”_ Sokka adds.

“And where exactly are you going to just _find the nearest Fire Clan initiate?”_ Zuko asks Azula. “It’s the middle of the night, you don’t _know_ your Clan anymore, you don’t know who’d be able to help and who wouldn’t.”

“Hence the early start,” Azula snaps.

“I’m telling you to _think!”_ Zuko says urgently. _“Both_ of you! I want to save Suki as much as you do, and you’re absolutely right, we should be trying to find her before Zhao gets her to the power plant, but we need a contingency plan. We need a _plan_ to begin with! If we don’t find Suki before tomorrow night—“

“We _will—“_

“You don’t know that. If we don’t, we need to at least be able to get Zhao access to those accounts, if nothing else. That should ensure some amount of safety for Suki.”

“That’s assuming he’ll stop there, he made it pretty clear that he’s gonna kill Azula once he has that information,” Sokka says.

“Let him fucking try,” Azula growls.

“We should have that information,” Zuko insists. “We need _some_ bargaining chip. In case this goes south…we may not be able to find Suki before tomorrow night, and we need a plan in place to make sure she gets out safe. We can get…” he thinks. “We can get Toph, Katara and Aang on the account part. Aang might be able to put a call in to the prison, get ahold of Ozai. Maybe he’ll…”

He exhales, suddenly unsure. _Would_ Ozai be willing to give up the location and access of his entire fortune if it meant giving Azula a fighting chance to survive? It’s not as if he can _do_ anything with those funds from where he is, and he’s looking at a life sentence, he’d have nothing to gain by _not_ telling them…but purely out of pride, or spite…would he be willing to let go of what little legacy he has left in order to help the son who disgraced and betrayed him, and the daughter who failed him?

Zuko looks at Azula and reads his own uncertainty mirrored in her eyes.

“We can at least try,” Zuko says. “And in the meantime…the three of us can work on trying to figure out where Suki might be held.” He sighs in frustration. “Fuck, this is the exact time Jet’s contacts might’ve actually been useful, but of course…”

“That little rat scampered off to do as much internal damage as he could and vanished,” Azula says. “Who else do you have for contacts?”

“June,” Sokka suggests.

“June’s cagey about doing anything that might land her on either side of a Clan war,” Zuko says hesitantly.

“June also has a pretty deep loyalty to cold hard cash,” Sokka points out. “Have her name a price. We’ll make it work.”

“We’ll make it work,” Azula echoes.

Zuko looks back and forth between them, then nods. “I’ll put in a couple calls.”

*

“Name your price” is music to June’s ears.

The three of them meet her early that morning at the park. She’s lounging on a bench, drowning a hangover with more coffee than seems safe to Zuko, one arm rested on Nyla, who she’s allowed up on the bench next to her.

“Tell you what,” she says, looking at Zuko over the tops of her sunglasses. “Twenty grand up front. And if you do end up getting access to your daddy’s accounts…I want a cut. Lets say a quarter even, just for fun.”

Zuko balks at that. “That’s an insane amount of money.”

She shrugs. “You want me working my leads across the entire city, and you want me getting you access to the new Firelord in the middle of a city-wide Clan war,” she points out. “Typically speaking, that’d be a hard no for me. But if you really want me to name a price, I think that’s a fair trade.” She takes a sip of her coffee, shuddering a bit. “Anyway, I’ve got a solid lead for you. They’ve offered me a high price for a job of their own, but if you’re really offering me higher…I think I can rearrange my plans.”

Twenty grand in cash isn’t exactly _easy_ to just get his hands on…he’s gonna have to take from his own private funds in addition to the company’s which could leave them sucking wind for a while.

Worth it, absolutely worth it, but if she needs it up front…

“I’ll get it,” he says. “Give me till noon, I’ll get it. Just get us in touch with your lead.”

*

And so it happens that Zuko hosts the last two people he’d ever expect to see working together in his living room.

Boss Long Feng of the Earth Clan, and Firelord Ozai’s old friend and former owner of the Boiling Rock, the Warden, sit stiffly on either side of Zuko’s couch, apparently having formed an extremely tense alliance recently. One that just so happens to be centered around a proposition for Azula.

“We’ve been trying to find your whereabouts for some time,” the Warden says to Azula. “After the Boiling Rock…times were uncertain for those of us loyal to the Sozin name. Zhao’s betrayal had nothing to do with me, Azula, I’m praying you know that…there are more of us out there that remain loyal to the Sozin name, not the travesty Zhao has tried to rebrand the Fire Clan under. There are those of us who still believe you to be the rightful leader of the Fire Clan, the way your father intended.”

Zuko notices Azula lift her chin sharply, some mixture of pride, confusion, and distrust etching into her expression. She looks back and forth between the two of them, lingering a little longer on Long Feng. There’s history there, spanning back to her childhood, memories Zuko flinches against, and he can only imagine how hard it is for her to be in the same room as him.

At last, she tears her eyes from him, focusing back on the Warden. “So what exactly has you two ladies in bed together?” she asks in scathing tones.

Long Feng’s face darkens, but it’s the Warden who answers.

“Put simply? Business,” he says. “What Zhao has done is bad for business. For all of us.”

“It’s true,” Long Feng agrees, voice deep and smooth. “The Warden filled me in on Ozai’s plans for monopoly over the Element X market. It was a solid business model, something I regret to admit he could have pulled off. But in Zhao’s hands…”

“Zhao couldn’t have picked worse timing,” the Warden takes up. “Deciding to enact this massive scale takeover directly after his failed attempt at murdering you…he didn’t have the Clan’s full support—still doesn’t. He was unsuccessful in a complete power grab. As I said, a solid portion of the Clan remains loyal to the idea that power should remain within the Sozin family, that without Ozai, you’re the rightful heir. The whole Element X monopolization has been a disaster, Zhao’s run the entire Clan almost completely into the ground. It was supposed to be a swift takeover. Instead it’s been several botched and bloody attempts that have failed as many times as they’ve succeeded. It’s drawn out into total war with the other Clans, all of them now well alerted to the fact that he’s going for a monopoly. They’ve all dug their heels in, no one’s willing to give. It’s absolute war.”

“No one wins in absolute war,” Long Feng adds. “Legitimate businesses the Clans control have been attacked, trade routes disrupted—the violence in the streets is problematic enough, but now, even perfectly legal institutions we have a hand in are suffering financially. As for the Element X market…there’s almost nothing to monopolize anymore, it’s become so mangled, all the lines blurred. The Red Lotus gang are thriving in the chaos of it, of course.”

“So the two of you have teamed up to what, clean up the streets?” Azula drawls.

“The Fire Clan needs to be reined in,” Long Feng says firmly. “The Warden and I have formed an alliance. We hope to bring Hama and Shoken in on it as well.”

“An alliance to destroy the Fire Clan…?”

“We’re not trying to destroy the entire Clan,” Long Feng says. “This is about business, nothing more. But if we want any sense of peace back, any way to bring our businesses back from the brink, we have to get rid of Zhao’s extremist followers. The Fire Clan needs to continue to exist, there’s simply no way to avoid that—it has its hands in institutions that are fundamental to the financial survival of this city. But it can’t be led by Zhao, not when half its people are at war with the other half. The Fire Clan needs to be brought to heel by someone they will _all_ readily accept as the new appointed Firelord. That means a member of the Sozin family. That means you.”

Zuko looks at Azula, and tries to read her. Her face is a mask, and it sends warning bells blaring through his mind.

“We’ve had eyes out for you ever since the latest rise in warfare,” the Warden says to her. “A few days ago, we got word of a bounty hunter that might be able to get us your location.”

“June.”

“That’s right,” Long Feng confirms. “We were looking for you, and now it seems you need us as well. We’re not suggesting the destruction of the Fire Clan, only the destruction of Zhao’s loyalists. If our people and the Water and Air Clans join forces, we should be able to exterminate Zhao and all his followers, leaving only the Sozin loyalists of the Fire Clan.”

“What’s left of the Fire Clan without Zhao’s people won’t be the grand empire it once was,” the Warden says apologetically to Azula. “But it will be yours. And under your leadership, it could grow again. But first…we have to be able to find some sense of balance between the Clans, or this entire city is going to go up in flames. I’m asking you, as old Family blood and a dear friend of your father’s: lead his people. Lead _your_ people. Join forces with the other Three Families, just for this, just to expunge Zhao’s hold. It’s what you want, isn’t it? To take back what’s yours? To kill the man that stole from you—not just your title or your wealth, but the girl you mentioned earlier? With all of us working together, we can achieve that.”

Zuko looks to Azula again, tries to silently send the word _no_ as urgently into her head as possible.

But Azula exhales slowly, eyes closing and fingers going to her forehead. “Fuck,” she hisses. She opens her eyes and they’re steely. “Fuck. I need a minute.”

She turns on her heel and makes her way outside to the tangle of brambles that sort of counts as Zuko’s backyard. Zuko follows her, letting the back door slam shut behind him.

“You can’t seriously be considering this,” he says as he approaches her.

She huffs angrily. “I said I need a minute, Zuko,” she mutters.

“You shouldn’t be giving a single thought to what they’ve said, you need to be thinking about Suki—“

“I _am_ thinking about Suki!” Azula explodes, and there it is, that desperate anger exposed, that electric charge finally lashing out in dangerous bolts that highlight the sudden fear in her. “I’m _only_ thinking about Suki!”

Zuko blinks in surprise at the raw emotion in her voice.

She reels herself in quickly. “Long Feng and the Warden are right,” she says, a small quaver still barely noticeable in her voice. “If we join forces, we can take Zhao down. There’d be no need for us to scramble to find access to those accounts, no need for me to surrender my life, no need for all this pointless bullshit. They know how to find Zhao, or at least the people who can point us in the right direction. Not to mention with their help, we’ll have the manpower to get past Zhao’s army of grunts and get straight to Suki. They’re it, Zuko, they’re the only way for me to get Suki back.”

“Long Feng and the Warden don’t give a shit about helping you get Suki back!” Zuko fires back disbelievingly. “They want a figurehead to help lead a slaughter. Not a single one of their people or Dad’s would give a second thought to Suki. They’ll come bearing down on Zhao and his people, and whoever gets in their way won’t cause them a _second_ of hesitation. Suki would be no safer with them than she is now.”

“If they’re loyal to me, they’ll listen—“

“They want you because you’re something they can use to rally their grunts around! All that bullshit the Warden’s spewing about _loyalty—_ they’re not _loyal,_ Azula, they want a known commodity! With you as their figurehead, they can keep all the same political and legal connections they had under Ozai’s charge! It’s not about _you,_ it’s not about the Sozin _name!_ It’s…exactly what the Warden said. It’s business. And once you’re ensnared in that business again, there won’t be any walking away, _especially_ not in the middle of a war. If you choose to align yourself with them, there’s no leaving. I won’t be able to protect you, Suki won’t, no one will. You’ll give up on what we’ve built here, and you’ll get dragged back into Dad’s world. You’ll be alone again.”

Azula’s actually shaking. “If it gets Suki back…”

“It won’t! You don’t fucking get it—“

“No _you_ don’t fucking get it!” Azula cries, and it’s such a broken sound, Zuko falls silent. “None of that matters! I’ll get roped into whatever they need me to get roped into, I’ll do anything they need me to do, if that’s what it takes, that’s all that matters! Suki’s been through this already, I can’t let her go through it again!”

Zuko feels his body tighten up warily. “What do you mean she’s been through it already?”

Azula gestures wildly toward the house. “Did you see that fucking video, Zuko?” she exclaims. “What Zhao did to her— _I_ did that to her! When we were kids, that’s _exactly_ what I did to her! I broke into her home, I hurt her, I bound and gagged her, I—I _branded_ her!” She barks out a pained laugh. “Fuck, I even took her clothes, it’s just history repeated all over again! I did that to her, I hurt her like that, I’m _just_ like Zhao, and it’s all my fault, once was enough, and I thought it was behind us, I thought I could _put_ it behind us, but I did that, and now she’s there because of me, everything that’s happened to her is because of me—“

She’s spiraling, voice hoarse, color high in her cheeks, a threatening shine to her eyes that looks almost like the gathering of tears.

Before he knows what he’s doing, Zuko grabs her and pulls her to his chest, getting his arms around her and holding her tight.

She freezes in his arms, body going rigid, sharp, and hard as steel. Then, slowly, a shudder racks through her body and she clutches at his shirt, burying her face in his shoulder. She doesn’t cry, but she does tremble, and Zuko holds her close, tries to protect her.

He lets go of her after a moment and guides her to sit down on the back steps next to him.

“You’re not Zhao,” he tells her gently. He lets out a slow breath. “What you did to Suki all those years ago…it was fucked up, and it was cruel, I’m not gonna deny that. But you did it for Ozai. He put you in a position that had you scrambling so desperately for his approval, you were blinded to everything else. But that’s not you. Wasn’t you then, not really, and it’s definitely not you now. I know that. And Suki knows that. She wouldn’t be with you if she thought otherwise.”

“She’s not with me now, I failed her,” Azula says. “I failed everyone. On both ends of the spectrum. I failed Dad. I failed you. I failed Suki. Every time I try…” She shakes her head. “There’s a reason Dad taught us not to open ourselves up to people, because _this…_ this happens. I let go of control for one second, and I have everything ripped away. I shouldn’t…I shouldn’t’ve gotten involved with Suki, not ever. Not for anything.”

Zuko leans his elbows on his knees, regarding her carefully.

“You love her, don’t you,” he says quietly.

Azula presses her lips together in a hard line and squeezes her eyes shut like she’s trying to fend off an enormous onslaught of pain.

Zuko almost squeezes her arm comfortingly, but thinks better of it at the last minute, closing his hand over his own arm instead. Doesn’t want to push, has already pushed too much.

“We’re gonna get her back,” he tells her firmly.

She looks back at him again, expression hopeless. “But without Long Feng’s alliance, and the Warden’s, I have nothing to go up against Zhao…”

“You have me,” Zuko says. “And Sokka. The whole of Avatar Security. We’re not gonna get pulled into a senseless war, and we’re not gonna sacrifice you. We’re gonna save Suki, and we’re gonna take Zhao down our way. After that, if the Clans want to come to peace, or keep tearing each other apart…that’s on them. We’ll protect everyone who’s been hurt because of them, starting with Suki, but everything else…it’s Clan business.”

Azula looks him over. He can see the wheels turning urgently in her head, weighing every possible outcome. After a long moment, she finally lets out her breath. “Fuck,” she says. “Avatar Security it is.”


	22. Chapter 22

Long Feng and the Warden accept Azula’s refusal with hackles raised and assurances that this will only spell disaster and the end of a legacy, etcetera, etcetera…but they do accept it. Azula watches them leave and feels something shift, like a weight has just slipped way from her. The two men retiring to their respective cars, plotting their next steps, going back to the drawing board…they seem to walk away with something of Azula’s, something Azula has been trying to shrug herself free of for some time now.

There goes her last chance, she thinks as the cars disappear. There goes the last thread holding her to the title of Firelord. She cut that thread herself, too. Free-falling now. Free-falling and no idea how far it is to the bottom, or if there’s a bottom at all.

She likes it better, she thinks suddenly. Likes the uncertain free-fall far more than gripping on for dear life to something she’s not sure ever existed in the first place.

But she needs to fall with direction, with purpose.

Zuko wastes no time in calling what appears to be the entire staff at Avatar Security into headquarters. A small part of Azula can’t help but be impressed with the place. The rundown appearance of Zuko’s house makes a little more sense now—seems every penny he’s ever laid hands on has gone into his company headquarters instead, purchasing training rooms, state of the art equipment for not only the use of new technologies in security, but research and development. It’s further equipped with several gyms, a pool, an infirmary, rooms devoted to physical therapy, an archive library, access to resources Azula’s never even _heard_ of before.

Most eye-catching to her is the full-fledged arsenal. Could be because while there is that tiny part of her that’s taking in the sleek appearance of the business her brother has created, the rest of her is out for blood.

Zuko and Aang brief their 50-strong outfit of agents on the situation; all other operations are put on hold for the next 24 hours. Aang divvies up their numbers into smaller teams, assigning some to the gathering of various intel, getting others on board to outline their plan of attack, some pulling personal contacts, and others responsible for putting together the necessary gear. And yes, that does include weapons. And transportation. Avatar Security hosts a garage full of anything from large cargo trucks, to more discrete practical cars, to flashy speedsters, to a small fleet of motorcycles. Azula eyes the red Kawasaki Ninja toward the front. Can’t help it.

Azula doubts Zuko would ever admit it, but the entire place has a distinctly Sozin flare to it. Somehow she’d expected more of a den, something cozy and small and hidden. Instead, it’s a masterpiece of infrastructure, the whole place and all its people functioning like a well-oiled, very deadly machine. No expense has been spared in the creation of this sanctuary for ingenuity, combat, and research. And all of it done out of a genuine desire to keep people safe. The whole place is a fabulous “fuck you” to everything Ozai tried to ingrain in Zuko. Azula feels a sudden and fierce burst of pride.

For her brother of all people.

She’s just emotional, she reminds herself. Everyone’s operating on high right now, no need to dwell on sudden sentimentality.

She and Zuko put another call in to June, who seems exasperated by the fact that they spurned the perfectly good lead she gave them.

“I dropped a solution right in your lap, what more could you possibly want?” she drawls.

But she does get to work, with a brand spanking new twenty grand in her pocket, and the promise of a large cut of whatever is in the Sozin family accounts. Assuming they ever get access to them. She pools her considerable means of tracking and intimidation with Avatar Security’s resource and intel team, exhausting every lead they can come up with.

Azula contributes what information she can, finding herself standing at the head of a conference table beside Zuko discussing Fire Clan assault tactics, what they can expect to deal with if push comes to shove comes to melee comes to war.

In the event that they aren’t able to get to Suki before the deadline, and they have to be prepared to hand over the account information they sort of glaringly don't have, Aang does put a call in to the prison to get whatever answers they can from Ozai.

Ozai declines the call.

Azula feels something small in her curl into itself, something cold in her chest.

She shouldn’t be surprised, she tells herself. Ozai has always forced her to stand on her own two feet. There’s no such thing as a helping hand, only the hand that feeds, or the hand that knocks you down.

It’s fine, she tells herself. They don’t need the account information as long as they can reach Suki before Zhao moves her to the power plant. They don’t need Ozai. _She_ doesn’t need Ozai.

With 16 hours left on the clock, everything hinges on June and the intel team.

Azula paces restlessly up and down the halls. Takes herself through forms. Beats the shit out of a punching bag. Paces some more. And everything over again.

Katara finds her seated on the edge of a weight machine, trying to catch her breath after her most recent round with the heavy bag.

“You should get some rest,” she advises.

Azula wipes the sweat from her brow with her forearm and laughs. “Sure. I’ll get right on that, Katara.”

“I’m serious. You know just as well as I do how ugly this is going to get. You need your rest.”

Azula shakes her head. “If June and the others find their location…”

“We’ll wake you the instant we get word,” Katara finishes. “We’re sleeping in shifts. Toph and Aang have this one. Zuko will be next, then me. We’ve still got another 14 hours to find her before Zhao’s deadline at the power plant. Just take a couple hours, Azula. You need it. We all do.”

Azula sighs. “I don’t think I could fall asleep if I tried.”

“I’ll get you some tea,” Katara offers. “I can take you through some breathing exercises. Get you to relax.”

“I don’t want to relax.”

“Azula. Please.”

The combination of her serene pragmatism and firm directive that leaves absolutely no room for argument finally wins Azula over. She drinks some stupid tea. She does some stupid breathing. She lies back on a stupid cot that is stupidly comfortable.

 _Sleep_ is a generous term for what she does. Mostly she drifts in and out of some ambiguous realm of quasi-consciousness, slipping sometimes enough to dream. Of course the dreams she does have are cruel, and not even remotely conducive to _rest._

Every time she closes her eyes, Suki is all she sees. She’s lulled into wistfulness at first—Suki’s laugh, Suki’s smile, the way it made Azula feel warm to the tips of her toes just to hold her.

But those pleasant thoughts are quickly ripped away from her. Suki’s laugh is distorted into that horrible scream, her smile becomes a twist of agony, and it seems for a moment that in holding her, Azula becomes some horrible hybrid of herself, and Zhao, burning and tearing into Suki’s flesh with teeth and flames.

She tries to jerk awake, but is dragged back down into half-sleep, and this time, all she can see is the shape of those burns peppered across Suki’s side. The cruel curve of them, a small tidal wave of sizzling wounds. That shape swirls around her, grows, becomes thousands and thousands of that same mark again and again. _Disgrace._ There’s a new cruelty that becomes clear to her in sleep, that those marks of disgrace weren’t to say that _Suki_ was the disgrace. Suki was the canvas. _Azula_ is the disgrace. Azula disgraced _her_. They’re Azula’s punishment, but Suki got to suffer for it.

She grapples back and forth from sleep to not-sleep again, and back down. She’s Zhao again, then herself. Zuko materializes, wraps his arms around her, but it isn’t comforting like it was when she was awake, it’s stifling and it hurts. Ozai rises like a flame from the ground, spreading large red feathered wings that cut her to pieces. She’s him now, and Zhao again, then back to herself, devoured by the phoenix tattoo on her back, enveloped in those welts of disgrace, curving up her side just like Suki’s, and expanding beyond to cover her entire body.

And then Suki again. Only Suki. Holding Suki. Kissing Suki. Then despair again as each kiss turns into a burn until Suki’s consumed by them, that horrible scream bouncing through the corridors of Azula’s mind.

Azula finally comes to full wakefulness drenched in cold sweat, and it becomes suddenly very clear to her that when all is said and done, if she’s able to rescue Suki —when, _when_ she’s able to rescue Suki—she’ll get her home safe, and then she’ll leave. She’ll disappear. She’ll have nothing to do with her ever again. Can’t fucking bear the idea that she caused her this degree of suffering, suffering that started years ago.

Suffering that made Azula _happy_ back then _._ Fuck, the pride she’d felt when she was 15, regaling Ozai with tales of how she tricked her way into Ba Sing Se Military Academy and all but destroyed it—how she reveled in secret memories of Suki, how beautiful she was, how fierce and formidable, how wonderful it had felt to be close to her. Using her to earn her father’s pride, but keeping her memory locked away just for herself. It cost Suki her home, the family she’d made for herself at that school, but to think how much joy the memory of meeting her gave Azula…how fucking selfish and sick that was.

And more recently…Azula turns over, clutching her knees to her chest. Zhao’s hands all over Suki. And what about Azula? Didn’t she do the same? At the safe house, god at the safe house, the way she’d pushed, the way she’d touched, the way she’d tried to claim her in so many ways.

And Suki liked it when it all came down to it, she’s made that abundantly clear, Azula has no doubt about that. But Azula pushed to get her there. Just kept pushing, because that’s the only way to get anywhere in life, keep pushing, keep pushing, keep pushing until they break.

Then again, Suki sure as hell pushed right back.

She was better at it, too. So good at it, Azula didn’t even realize what was happening. So she pushed and pulled, and Suki pushed and pulled back, until somehow they pushed and pulled so hard they both fell in deep somewhere along the line. All that pushing and pulling somehow turned into something wonderful, became a language all its own, one just for them.

And Suki paid the price for it.

Azula exhales slowly. Her resolve to vanish from Suki’s life once she’s finally safe gives her a sense of clarity. A sense of purpose. Of calm. If she tries to hold onto frantic hope and thoughts of the future, she starts spiraling in fear and self-destruction. But she can make this clean. Save her. Then leave her. A perfect ending. The _only_ ending.

She sits up at the sound of activity outside her door. Slipping on her shoes, she makes her way out to the main hall where the intel team is filing in. Azula joins the ranks, catching Zuko’s eye, and he nods at her before giving the intel leader the floor.

The long and short of it:

Their work with June over the last day has proven more fruitful than they could have hoped. Of the various properties Zhao has been trying to put to use in accordance with Ozai’s plans, an abandoned office complex was among the most recently acquired. Strangely, though, no attempts have been made to convert it, no work orders have been put into it, no attempts at sales or anything that could be useful to the Fire Clan.

It is, however, a secure, three story building fenced off with both barbed and electrical wire, boasting several security cameras posted at various points around the perimeter, and opaque or boarded-up windows disallowing any show of the goings-on inside. In other words, the perfect place for Zhao to be hiding his most valuable bargaining chip.

Not to mention, it’s the last place Zhao was spotted going in and out, intel gleaned from the father of the friend of thecabbage man who supplied ingredients to the owner of the bodega of the delivery boy who dropped off several bags worth of takeout to a man standing on the street corner outside the place. June’s contacts really do pay off.

“We’re gonna need to go in full force,” Zuko tells the gathered agents once the intel leader has passed along this information. “We don’t have the time to work out a quiet entry. Depending on the number of men Zhao has with him guarding the place, we could be looking at a full scale assault.”

“The good news is that we’ve got the element of surprise on our side,” Aang takes up. “Zhao is planning for an exchange at an already agreed-upon time, and an already agreed-upon place. We’re swooping in before that deadline. He also intended for the exchange to happen with Azula alone. Now, whether he actually believed that would happen is debatable. No cops was a given, but it’s possible he assumes Azula would show up at least with a small handful of us on her side. We’re not going in with a small handful. We’re going in all hands on deck, full throttle.”

Azula feels energized by those words. Her brother and his company aren’t the goody-two-shoes weaklings she’d once thought. They’re a formidable force, all of them seeming to have a strong connection with each other, and to the city itself. If she fails…

Azula flinches at the thought. She’s failed so many times at so many things, but she won’t, not this time.

But _if_ she does…

She’s relieved to know that her brother and his people won’t back down until Suki is safe.

Maps are laid out across the conference table, blueprints wrangled from contacts in construction providing alternative routes of access to the building and its grounds, a layout of the electrical system, power switches, and drainage. The idea is to take out the main power lines and gain access through multiple angles and multiple levels. The layout points to the existence of a backup generator, but it has to be turned on manually, which in theory, should give them time to get in, and begin either the rescue, or the attack, whichever comes first. That will depend entirely on whether it’s just Zhao and the Rough Rhinos, or if he’ll have added extra muscle in preparation for the exchange later on.

Zuko re-divvies the teams from before—those who will run the operation from headquarters, those who will provide transport, surveillance, and liaison from outside the building, and those who will make up the strike team on the inside. From there, the strike team is further divvied into assault primary, and rescue primary. They fully expect for lines to blur, but in the interest of some plan of attack, the separate factions do make sense.

Azula would be impressed with the speed and efficiency of all this organizing, if the memory of Suki’s scream didn’t keep shattering through her skull, distracting her.

With four hours left on the clock, the strike team gears up and readies to depart. Azula doesn’t waste time with anything fancy—she’s a fair shot, but if they’re looking at close range and multiple levels with multiple enemies _and_ multiple allies, she’s going to forego the heavier hardware and go for a pair of single-round pistols instead. There’s kevlar vests galore, and a handful of agents go for helmets decked out with thermal imaging as well. Azula passes those up, not wanting anything to hinder her line of sight once the backup generator's back up and running. Besides that, she’s all about the edge weapons, strapping a knife to each thigh, one of her biceps, and a trio of blades strapped lengthwise to her back.

“That’s a sharp outfit you’ve got there,” Zuko says.

She smirks. “You’re one to talk.” She juts her chin at the dual broadswords at his back. “Thought those were supposed to be decorative.”

“The ones at my house are decorative,” he corrects. _“These_ babies’ll slice you to ribbons.”

Sokka joins them, armed to the hilt as well, followed by Toph, who doesn’t appear to be armed at all.

“Toph, aren’t you gearing up, or…” Azula trails off, realizing her stupidity too late to take it back.

“That’s a great idea, Princess, give the blind girl a gun,” Toph deadpans, but she’s giving her a lopsided smile. She fits a set of headphones over her ears. “No, I’m your ears outside the perimeter. I’ll guide you guys through. Prooooobably best if I don’t have access to weapons of mass destruction, though.”

“Me and a handful of others will be at the ready outside for any emergency medical attention,” Katara adds. “Aang will be running the show from here.”

The rest of the strike team files in behind them as they lead the way to the garage, getting to their assigned vehicles and preparing to take off.

Zuko goes for the sleek black roadster at the front, built noticeably for stealth. He pauses when Azula splits off from him.

“Aren’t you riding with me and Sokka?” he asks.

Azula feels a smirk twist at the corner of her mouth and shakes her head, making her way to the red Kawasaki beside him, and mounting it. God she’s missed her motorcycles.

“You know we’re trying to go for stealth, right?” Zuko says disapprovingly.

“Team Beta’s going for stealth,” Azula corrects. “Alpha’s going for blood.”

Zuko rolls his eyes, but she knows he isn’t _really_ bothered. They _do_ have the secondary group coming in from beneath and through the back, and yes, they’re all going to be in stealth mode, but Azula’s team? Nothing stealthy about it.

Sokka, having loaded a backup supply of assault weapons in the trunk, circles around to join Zuko. He’s unnaturally quiet, and there’s a look of determination in his eyes, like he’s been thinking something over. It’s noticeable enough that both Azula and Zuko look to him curiously.

He clears his throat, lifting his gaze to meet Zuko’s, chin lifted. “So…I just want you to know, after all this, I’m gonna marry you,” he says.

Zuko blinks, then cracks a smile, rolling his eyes.

“Sokka, I get that you’re trying to bring a little levity to things, but there’s a time and place for joking about…”

“I’m not joking, I’ve got a ring.”

So saying, Sokka produces a gold ring from his pocket. Azula stares in surprise as he grabs Zuko’s hand and jams the thing right onto his finger without preamble, taking Zuko’s chin firmly in hand.

“There. We’re engaged now, nothing you can do about it,” he says, and pulls Zuko in close, kissing him so hard he flushes bright red and Azula feels a little ill. And a little wistful.

He separates from Zuko with a pop, fingers lingering at his jaw. “Now. Let’s go fuck some bitches up,” he says, and turns with a slap to Zuko’s ass.

Zuko watches him circle around to the passenger side, looking dumbfounded. He looks back at Azula, cheeks scarlet.

Azula blinks back at him. “Your boyfriend is very odd,” she remarks.

Zuko’s gaze drops down to his hand, and the gold ring encircling his finger.

“Fian—fiancé,” he corrects in an awkward fumble, and he’s suddenly beaming.

It…makes something move in Azula’s chest. Something warm and vaguely fluttery and on the spectrum of textiles it would probably fall somewhere around the _fuzzy_ mark.

“Well…congratulations,” she offers.

He looks at her like his heart is bursting, chin high like that ring on his finger just gave him a shot of adrenaline and a feeling of invincibility like no one has ever seen before. He looks like he could leap buildings. “Let’s go get our girl,” he says.

He opens the door to the car and is about to dip in when Azula stops him.

“Zuko,” she says haltingly.

He looks at her curiously, eyes bright, boyish, and she looks back, suddenly not sure how to put what she’s feeling to words, or even what her feeling _is._ Gratitude? Longing? Concern, maybe? Concern about what lies ahead of them, what could happen, what they stand to lose? Losing _him?_

“…Just be careful, Dum-Dum,” she finishes awkwardly.

Zuko smiles anew at the childhood nickname. “Race you there,” he says, and ducks into the car.

Azula brings the Kawasaki roaring to life and surges ahead of their fleet, leading the way to Suki.

*

A three-story office complex is one way to describe Zhao’s hideout.

A three-story deathtrap is somewhat more accurate.

It goes according to plan for the first five minutes or so—Team Beta positions itself in the weaker points of entry no one would expect to use, or, in some cases, even know existed. The main power lines are cut, and Team Alpha bursts in through main entryway, the frontline outfitted with defensive gear and infrared imaging. They know the darkness will provide them with cover for only a minute or so before someone gets the bright idea to switch on the backup generator.

The darkness keeps them safe for seconds only.

Before Azula and the others have the chance to adjust to their surroundings, a volley of gunfire erupts around them. Azula dives to the floor, drawing one of her pistols and shooting low, aiming for what she hopes are the legs of their foes. A sharp cry indicates she hit her target.

The backup generator switches on moments after that, as if this had been prepared. The wide lobby lights up to reveal two dozen of Zhao’s men gathered in formation before them, and Azula sees more streaming down the staircase.

Zhao’s men aren’t surprised to see them. They’ve been lying in wait.

The room erupts in chaos. It’s as she thought—the close quarters reduce gunplay to a minimum, single shots fired intermittently from both sides, but not the spray of gunfire she might have expected in a grander setting.

She jumps into the melee without a thought, knives drawn, darting and weaving, blades arcing through air, through skin, through muscle and bone. She ducks under the arm of a gunman, sweeping his legs and pulling him off-balance, slamming her elbow up into his nose, shattering it.

No time to revel in it. She needs eyes on Zhao. Or eyes on a door. Or a staircase leading down. Suki was underground, she knows that much, and with the blueprints, they have a pretty good idea where—she just needs to get there.

Her eyes are drawn to the far side of the room. Bingo. The rest of Zhao’s men have flung themselves headlong into battle with Avatar Security, but this one, lone man, stands braced and ready in front of a door. Guarding it.

Azula fights her way through the crowd, stumbling as a fist connects with her rib, and a knife swipes across her arm, shallow enough not to cause any real damage, but certainly enough to draw blood. She wheels on her attacker—the person she assumes is her attacker anyway—barely blocking a large, brass-knuckled fist headed for her jaw. She drops down, rolling out of the way of a second attacker, lunging up and thrusting her knife up into the stomach of the first.

Somewhere to her left, more shots ring out, followed by a solid _thock_ and a gurgled cry. She keeps her eyes on the door, trying to push her way through the ocean of bodies.

There’s too many. Too fucking many, they were expecting this…

She draws two of the longer blades from their sheathes at her back and dives in, swinging them with abandon. It isn’t elegant. It’s brutal. She cuts left and right, uses the force of her enemies to sling back, catching onto others to propel forward, hacking at anyone who gets in her way.

She’s thrown a few times to the ground and has to roll away from stomping feat and stabbing hands. It really is an office complex, complete with a series of cubicles that have yet to be taken down and discarded. She finds brief sanctuary in them, casting her gaze around, getting eyes on Zuko, and beside him, Sokka. Zuko is going on the aggressive offense—Sokka, like her, seems bound and determined for that door, and the stairwell leading to Suki.

Azula lunges forward again, cutting her way through the mob, stumbling against blows to her face and stomach, jolting but forcing herself to ignore the burning sting of something that goes whirring past her at terrifying speeds. It registers somewhere in the back of her brain that a bullet just grazed against her shoulder, too close for comfort, but not close enough to stop her.

Shoving all other thoughts, all other feelings, all other physical barriers away, she focuses on that door. She’s on rescue. She’ll skewer Zhao if she sees him, but it’s Suki, her focus is Suki.

She draws her second pistol as she finally nears the door, letting shots fly at the man guarding it. He leaps out of the way, catching one in the shoulder, the other grazing his neck. Son of a bitch is lucky he wasn’t two inches to the left.

She races past him, kicking the door open and running down the short stairwell to the floor below.

More are waiting for her there. She charges forward and skids across the floor, firing at anything that moves as she goes.

Alright, she said she was a _fair shot,_ it’s not like she’s had much opportunity to engage in a full scale shootout. That was what the pawns of the Fire Clan were for, this chaotic brute level gunplay was never supposed to be her role. She’s better at hand-to-hand. She’s making a fucking mess of this whole thing.

Fortunately her adversaries down here aren’t much for gunplay either. They’re in for the melee of it as well, and she twists into them one by one, alternating fist with blade, ducking and striking. Adrenaline is shooting through her, and when her blade is knocked from her hand, she lunges headlong into her disarmer, slamming his face into the wall.

Because there, at the far end of the hall, is what she’s looking for. That’s the room they identified on the blueprints as the one most likely to be holding Suki. She’s almost there. The sight of it sends a savage ferocity flooding through her, and she strikes again and again, refusing to lose traction. She’s a wildfire, she’s a storm, no force on Earth can keep her from that door.

And she’s no longer alone. A crashing noise comes from the stairwell behind her. She glances enough to see that it’s more of her people, not Zhao’s. Avatar Security has officially broken past the wall of Zhao’s underlings—she has an _army_ behind her to bring Suki home safe.

Primal joy and fear twisting together as one, she’s spurred on toward the door. She tries shoving it open only to find that it’s locked up tight. She cocks her pistol and shoots once, twice, three times—that’s the last of them. She tosses the useless weapon to the side, kicking down the broken door, and flying into the room.

She skids to a halt.

Empty.

But it’s the same room, she knows it is, because the look of that room is seared into her memory, the shadows, the dips in the walls, the single naked bulb, the metal chair—all of it’s there. Even the brand, no longer a threat, just cold iron with no one to wield it, lies abandoned in the center of the floor.

Sokka and a handful of others squeeze in beside her, pausing at the emptiness as well.

“Where is she?” Sokka utters. She can feel the urgency coming off him in waves.

She turns on her heel.

“It’s a big place,” she says. “She’s here somewhere, we’ll find her.”

But she isn’t here. When she and Sokka and the rest of the crew that made it downstairs return to the lobby, the grand majority of the fighting has come to a halt. It’s fair to say that Avatar Security has bested Zhao’s grunts. A few of their team are wounded, those who are better off than others help each other outside to where Katara and her team are prepped to take care of the worst of them.

Panic and anger climbing to higher and higher octaves, Azula notes that most of Zhao’s men are still alive—they’ve been incapacitated in various degrees, limbs broken, weapons taken from them, subdued in one way or another. Only a few of them seem like they might be dead, and Azula can’t help the very savage desire to rip the rest of them to shreds.

It won’t help anything, she reminds herself of that, refocuses. This is only the first floor, there’s still hope. Intentions set, she steps through the desert of felled bodies.

“Search all the rooms!” she orders the Avatar Security agents flanking her. She knows she hasn’t been appointed any legitimate status of leadership, but they obey her anyway, seeming to sense her authority nonetheless. Or maybe they just sense the anger growing like wildfire from within her, can see it starting to flare into something more dangerous with each passing second. “Every fucking room in the complex! Tear the place to pieces if you have to!”

The ranks spread out, a handful staying behind to keep guard and subdue the survivors of Zhao’s defeated army.

Azula searches the building wildly. Every room—every room that’s been checked by her brother’s people already—every room she _herself_ has checked already—again and again and over and over, she searches them all, panic rising higher and higher. Suki isn’t here. Neither is Zhao.

The reality of that notion keeps hitting up against the inside of her skull. Can’t be right. Can’t be right, they had everything figured out, Suki should be here, Zhao should be here, it _can’t be fucking right_ …

Her stubborn denial doesn’t let up until she sees Sokka coming toward her. He looks defeated, exhausted, and finally reality sinks low in her chest. Not here. They aren’t here. Bewildered, despairing, and feeling like she’s been beaten down into the dirt, she and the rest of her team trudge back down the stairs to the lobby.

Zuko is standing guard over a man Azula recognizes vaguely, a familiar enough face that he would have had direct contact with Ozai from time to time back in the day. Obviously not a Sozin “loyalist” though. Apparently hitched his wagon to Zhao in the schism brought on by her attempted murder.

She can’t for the fucking life of her remember his name, but it’s clear he’s the leader of this particular sub-army of grunts, face swollen and bloody.

Zuko, pistol aimed warningly at the leader’s head, looks up to see Azula’s approach, tilting his head warily. He’s drenched with sweat, bearing a series of cuts up and down his arms, a small spray of blood from what she assumes is the man before him splattered across his skin. The expression on his face says he’s seeing the same on her.

Azula draws the last of her blades and grabs the grunt leader by his hair, yanking his head back and pressing the blade to his throat.

“Where’s Suki?” she demands.

The leader glowers up at her, teeth bared, face purple. He’s broken in multiple parts of his body, she can tell, and he’s sporting a bullet wound to the stomach.

She crouches, and sticks her thumb into the wound.

The man howls in pain.

“Where’s Suki?” she shouts again.

“I don’t know!” the man gasps, and she digs her thumb in harder, twisting. His body heaves and she shoves him down, pressing her knee into his chest, blade back to his throat.

“Where’s Suki?” she cries.

“I don’t know, I don’t know!” the leader insists through a guttural spray of saliva.

“Where’s Zhao?” Zuko asks, crouching down as well, tone much more controlled.

Azula flinches at the sound, wishes she had that control. She used to. She used to have endless, undisputed control. Cold-blooded, they all said it. The irony wasn’t lost on a single one of them. It took someone cold-blooded to keep control over the Fire Clan.

Now she’s staring this pathetic worm of Zhao’s down, her grip on her blade so tight her arm is shaking, blood slipping free from a dozen minor wounds, clothes clinging to her sweat-soaked skin. A mess. She’s become a mess, an out of control mess who can only see Suki, didn’t even _think_ the name Zhao until Zuko said it.

The grunt leader blinks rapidly up at Zuko. “I don’t know,” he says again, and Azula applies more pressure to the blade. “I don’t!” he shouts, trying to press himself as far back against the floor as he can to get away from its bite. “He left with her, an hour ago, maybe two!”

“Where did they go?” Azula demands, feeling like she’s stuck in a loop.

“I don’t know, he didn’t tell us! He took her and a couple men and they left, told us to stay behind, thought you might show up!” He flails his arm uselessly. _“You,”_ he specifies at Azula. “Thought _you_ might show up! Said there might be some others joining you, but not like this—he didn’t tell us there might be this. We were supposed to wait for _you._ And if you came…”

“If I came…?”

“Try to take you alive. Try. And if you were killed…he said it wouldn’t be ideal, but said it’d be okay, it was better than nothing.”

“But where did he go? The power plant? Did he leave early? Or is he somewhere else?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know!” the leader insists again, sputtering, and Azula allows a thin line of blood to be drawn across his throat. “He made a deal with the girl!” he cries.

Azula lets up a fraction of an inch, heart picking up pace just at the vague mention of Suki.

Sokka crouches down now. “What deal?” he growls.

“She said she could get him access to the Sozin accounts,” the leader gasps. “She said she knew where the information was kept. Told him if she showed him where it was, he wouldn’t need you. Said you were stepping down, that you had no interest in taking your father’s place, that the Fire Clan was all his if he wanted it. That if she gave him access to the accounts, there’d be no need for the rest, no need for you to be killed.”

He dares to swallow, his Adam’s apple bobbing too close to the edge of the blade, causing him a new wave of panic. That panic leads to a tidal wave of sputtering, stammering through his story, repeating things over and over, rambling and spiraling.

“The girl told him she knew where the information was, told him she could show him where to find it! And he took her, had her tell him the way, took her with him,” he tells them in a rush. “And he didn’t tell her, but he left us behind. Didn’t want her to know. She told him what she could show him, and he promised to let you live, but he lied, he left us waiting for you, she doesn’t know. He wanted us to keep you alive so he could do the honors himself when he got back. But he’s out now, out with her, she’s showing him where those accounts are.”

“How the hell would _Suki_ know how to get access to those accounts?” Sokka exclaims.

Azula casts her mind around desperately. Suki wouldn’t know, Suki _couldn’t_ know— _Azula_ doesn’t know, nor does Zuko, there’s no possible way she could have information that would have been kept firmly within the Sozin family, specifically the elder generation. Ozai or Ursa, they were the only ones who knew, and Suki wouldn’t know how to contact Ozai, wouldn’t know how to convince him even if she _did,_ and Ursa’s dead, nothing’s left of her, nothing that Suki’s seen, nothing…

But then it clicks.

Suki knows more about Ursa’s dealings in the Fire Clan’s finances than anyone.

Because isn’t that what Azula woke up to, that first afternoon at the safe house, not 48 hours after Zuko scooped her up outside a club in the wake of Ozai’s arrest and dropped her in Suki’s lap? Condemned for a week to the house Ursa once used as a private retreat? Azula remembers it so vividly now, waking slowly, still nursing the last dregs of a hangover, wandering through the halls of the safe house and coming upon Suki in the library.

Specifically, Suki poring through stacks and stacks of Ursa’s ledgers.

It hadn’t registered then—why would it? Azula had been too focused on her more immediate problems, and distracted by her fascination with Suki’s sudden reappearance in her life. Asked her pointblank what she was doing, got the answer pointblank, but didn’t think twice about it.

_Ledgers. Your mom kept very thorough records._

She was too preoccupied with Suki at the time, trying to get under her skin, get a reaction out of her, teasing her, trying already to get her to fall for her. Meanwhile, Suki was going over Ursa’s very detailed financial logs, ones that would have made clear mention of the Sozin family offshore accounts, lining out any information regarding their location and access in clear black and white.

Azula sits back on her heels, mind racing. She would. Suki would. Suki would throw herself into the most dangerous position she could if it meant keeping Azula safe, keeping her friends safe. She’d throw herself into the fire.

“I know where Suki is,” Azula says finally. “And Zhao.”

Zuko and Sokka turn to her in surprise. “Where?” Zuko asks.

“The safe house,” she says, shaking her head. “She’s taken him to the fucking safe house.”


	23. Chapter 23

Suki knows Zhao’s word is worthless. She isn’t stupid. She doesn’t believe for a second that he’ll actually keep his oath to her, that he’ll actually leave Azula alive and well once Suki’s gotten him access to Ursa’s ledgers. She knows he’ll take that information, get what he needs, and still be back to take Azula’s life, deal or no deal. He’s made it pretty abundantly clear that he intends to snuff out any threat to his position, and no matter what, he will always consider Azula a threat to his position, whether she’s really bowed out of the Sozin legacy or not.

Suki also knows that she can’t stop Zhao, not like this. The burns going up her side and the last lingering traces of Element X sizzling through her veins have left her physically useless. There’s no way in hell she’d be able to defeat him or his handful of accompanying goons single-handedly, or even fight them off in the most feeble of ways. She’s alone, and without the ability to fight for herself.

So she’s going to let the safe house do the fighting for her.

Part of her has always been curious about the wide variety of traps Sokka and Teo equipped the house with when Zuko gave it to them to tinker with all those months ago. This isn’t to say that she ever _wanted_ any of them to go off when she and Azula were there. But after being given the grand tour, part of her always wondered what it would be like to see them in action.

It will take a lot of work to get things in place, she knows that. She has to gather enough reserves to break away from Zhao and his people, to get herself up to the second floor where the closet Sokka kept his wall of footage and controls is. That’s going to be the hardest part. 90 seconds, she thinks. If she can manage to give Zhao the slip, all she needs is 90 seconds to reach the closet upstairs and begin putting Sokka and Teo’s inventive prowess to work.

After that…

…She can’t think about after that.

She has to focus on now. If she wants to stand even a fighting chance of _getting_ that 90 seconds, she needs to get her strength back, as much of it as she can. She’s got an hour long drive up a mountain to manage it.

Seems unfair that that hour is slipping away so quickly, while the idea of fighting to stay alive for 90 seconds in the future seems like it’ll be an eternity.

Every bump that jostles the car as Zhao drives them up the mountain is agony. Suki angles herself as best she can so that her branded side has as little pressure against it as possible, but mountain weather has left the road up here littered with ruts and shallow cavities, and the tires of the car seem to hit each and every one of them, jarring her back in her seat. She does her best to bite her tongue—doesn’t want to give Zhao the satisfaction of seeing how weak he’s made her—but she isn’t able to stifle a wince at a particularly sharp spike and she bounces back against the seat.

Zhao glances at her eyes lingering on her side, as if he can see the brands even through her shirt, even through the layers of bandaging beneath it.

“I do not envy you,” he remarks before turning his attention back to the road ahead. “I remember getting my first brand. Guy who did it did a shit job of it, hurt like a bitch. Nerve damage, all along the width.”

He lets go of the wheel with one hand and loosens his shirt collar, pulling it aside so she can see the top swirl of a brand just below his collarbone. “Can’t feel a goddamn thing there now.”

He pulls his collar closed. “Sorry to say I might’ve done a number where Azula’s mark was on you, solid chance you won’t be able to feel anything there either. I always try to be careful with my canvases, but that mark needed to be tamped out. You understand. The others should heal in time—the scars will remain, of course, there’s nothing to be done about that. But we got our physician on you in a timely fashion. Long as you let us care for them, you should turn out just fine.”

Suki sputters out a laugh that sends pain searing down her side. “That’s so reassuring coming from you,” she can’t help but drawl.

“Would you have preferred we leave you untreated?” Zhao asks pointedly. “We could just as easily have left those gaping and open for infection.”

Suki braces herself as the car bucks again, holding onto the door handle so tight it hurts. No, she wouldn’t have preferred they leave her untreated. Not that the treating was pleasant either. Most of it had been her slipping in and out of consciousness, at the mercy of the Element X dose running rampant through her system. The face of the Fire Clan physician had contorted off and on into something monstrous, the salve he spread on the burns which should have been soothing had somehow burned even more, her senses tricked into feeling nothing but pain, even when comforted. It was only recently that she regained enough awareness to make sense of what happened, to be grateful for the gauze pressed into her side, the wrapping around her torso to keep her in tact.

“Why didn’t you?” she asks, trying to disguise a wince.

“Seemed ungrateful to do too much damage to the girl who keeps lending an accidental hand to the Fire Clan,” Zhao answers. He smiles, looking pensive. “You know, I wasn’t actually aware of who you really were until you showed me Azula’s mark on your side.”

She looks at him warily, walls coming up. “What’s to know?”

He’s looking back at the road again now, but his smile remains. “You’re the girl from Ba Sing Se Military Academy,” he says.

Suki lifts her chin, doesn’t know what to say to that, doesn’t know how he could possibly know to draw that kind of connection, or why it should matter to him.

“Yeah, I know about that,” Zhao answers without looking back at her. “Azula didn’t tell her father that she marked you, of course. But she did tell that friend of hers, Ty Lee. I heard them speaking about it one night, how she marked and protected the girl whose stubborn bravery gained us a crucial foothold in the Earth Clan territory. And now, what, eight years later? You’re helping the Fire Clan grow under new leadership.” He glances down pointedly at her branded side, then back to the road. “No, you’ve done more for this Clan than some of its most iron-forged initiates. I couldn’t let you just fester away. You’ll be well-cared for while those heal, don’t you worry about that.”

Suki looks out the window at the hills sprawling below. “You’re not going to let me go after this, are you,” she says quietly. “Even though you gave your word.”

“To be honest, I’m still batting the idea around,” Zhao admits. “I’d say it all depends on just how helpful these ledgers you claim to have found really are.”

Suki presses her head against the window with another wince, trying to ignore the dread curling low in her gut. It’s like a creature, making itself comfortable in there, claws kneading at her insides.

“So much for your Clan’s sense of honor,” she mutters. “Is that mark on your chest for disgrace like mine?”

“Loyalty,” he corrects sharply.

Suki gives a pained laugh, can’t help it. “Do they have one for irony?” she asks.

Zhao doesn’t find this nearly as funny. “My loyalty to the Clan itself has never been in question,” he tells her. “But the _great Sozin family_ has been on the brink of collapse for decades now, caught up in its own endless drama. I can lift our people back up.”

“Could’ve sworn you told me just recently that you’ve run the Clan practically into the ground.”

Zhao’s jaw clenches hard and for a second, Suki actually wonders if he might pull over and throttle the life from her.

Instead he growls, “Perhaps you’d like another mark burned into you—maybe one across your mouth this time to keep you from speaking, or one on your tongue. I made the decision not to disfigure you before, but by all means, continue to push me.”

Suki is silent for a moment. Strangely, the threat doesn’t scare her. If anything, it strengthens her resolve. 90 seconds, she reminds herself. When they get to the safe house, all she needs is 90 seconds. And the more unstable she can make Zhao in the meantime, the better.

“What would my new mark be this time?” she asks him. “Another one for disgrace? Or are you going to burn ‘loyalty’ into me too for all the help I’ve given you?”

This time, Zhao actually does seem amused, a smirk curling at his lips. “I can see why Azula’s so fond of you,” he says. “No, I can think of a few that might be more fitting. Most initiates have to slave away for a year or two before they can earn the mark of ‘loyalty’. Some longer than that.”

Suki finds her thoughts slipping to Azula, of the soft skin Suki has felt every inch of, and frowns in thought. “Azula was being groomed to be Ozai’s successor her whole life,” she says. “Why doesn’t she have any marks on her?”

Zhao glances at her. “Curious little thing, aren’t you,” he remarks. He squares his shoulders with a sigh. “She hasn’t completed her penance yet. She tried to demand her first mark some days before Ozai’s arrest a few months back, and he refused her. It was one of the few times I’ve ever seen her lose her temper with him. She’d helmed quite a successful trade deal, and identified a rat among our ranks. She assumed that would earn her at least one brand, if not more. She couldn’t believe Ozai would deny her.”

Suki shifts in her seat as the car hits another rough patch. “I can tell her right now, being branded isn’t all it’s cracked up to be,” she mutters, and Zhao chuckles. She turns her head to him, unable to resist the bait of the rest of what he said. “What do you mean she hasn’t completed her penance yet?” she asks.

“She got her cousin killed,” Zhao tells her with about the same amount of emotion someone might have to state they just went to the grocery store. “Accidentally, of course. This would have happened…let’s see, maybe a few weeks before she burned down Ba Sing Se Military Academy. Now _that_ was a real shame. Lu Ten. That boy had promise. When Zuko left, Ozai was ready to welcome his nephew in as one of his top initiates. He was young, of course, only a few years older than Azula, and he hadn’t had much experience beyond a little roughing up, a little intimidation. But he’d proven himself quite a few times in scuffles with other Clans, and had a good sense for the business. I liked him, but I also worried he took after Iroh too much to be of any real worth, and I was right. Soft-hearted. Got himself killed trying to rescue Azula.”

“Rescue Azula from what?” Suki’s afraid she already knows. All those times Azula made some snarky remark about her being both her favorite prisoner, and more importantly, her favorite captor. Those came from somewhere.

“Azula had a very strict regimen growing up,” Zhao tells her. “Including a very strict curfew. She broke it the night of her fifteenth birthday, running off somewhere with that pesky friend of hers.”

Ty Lee.

“Of course it’s impossible to say for certain what she was doing with her, but I’m sure you can imagine. Our Azula has always thought herself mature for her age,” Zhao says.

Suki fights off a wave of revulsion at his tone.

“In any case, she let her guard down,” Zhao continues. “From what we were able to piece together from her story later, she didn’t leave her friend to return to the Sozin estate until after midnight. Her friend’s family wasn’t Fire Clan, but they were loyal tributaries. Unfortunately for all of us, their home is situated in a gray area between the Fire and Earth territories. Dai Li agents familiar enough with the Sozin family’s position took note of the Firelord’s daughter and her tendency to frequent this particular homestead.” He shrugs. “Azula should have known better.”

 _I know better than that._ Azula’s insistence on those words rings with new desperation in Suki’s mind now.

“So here’s this selfish, spoiled teenage daughter of the Firelord, blithely strolling through disputed territory in the dead of the night,” Zhao goes on. “She couldn’t possibly have made it any easier for the Dai Li. They took her—I’m sure she put up as much of a fight as she could, but years of training will only take one small girl so far when pitted against a group of grown men. They took her directly to Boss Long Feng in Earth territory. Ozai received the ransom note the following morning. Long Feng demanded a huge sum of money for her return, as well as assured control over the disputed territory. The consequences of not accepting his terms weren’t outlined explicitly in the note, but as I’m sure you remember…Long Feng was known for his hand in skin trade at the time.”

Suki swallows hard.

 _Ugly, isn’t it._

The deceptive smoothness of 15-year-old Azula’s voice when she had Suki look at what was on the drive at Ba Sing Se, the human trafficking ring Long Feng ran so expertly. What she might have seen when she was held captive by Long Feng, what might have _happened_ to her _…_

“Not to worry,” Zhao tells her, clearly seeing the distress rising up in her. “Azula got out of the whole thing without much more than a couple scrapes and bruises, perhaps a few scarring memories. But all of us had the exact same thought you’re having right now when we first received the ransom note. I advised Ozai to hold off in accepting Long Feng’s terms, and he agreed. He figured a full scale war would be better—he could get Azula back, and take down as much of the Earth Clan as possible at the same time. A win-win as far as we were concerned. Lu Ten…” he stretches his neck, “…disagreed.”

He frowns in thought, seeming distracted. “Another weak link in the Sozin family,” he says. “First Ursa, then Iroh, then Zuko…then Lu Ten. Couldn’t handle the uncertainty of what would happen to Azula if war broke out. Impatient. Reckless. He disobeyed orders to wait. Used whatever methods he had to get to her, got her out safe, and wound up with a couple dozen Dai Li bullets in his body for his troubles.

“Ozai was furious, of course,” he adds. “One of his most promising young initiates, not just through Family loyalty, but family blood, shot down like a dog. He still fully intended for Azula to take his place when the time came, but he blamed her completely for Lu Ten’s death. He decreed that she wouldn’t be permitted so much as her first brand as initiate until she repented a full 10 years. She would have to prove herself to him again and again and again, with nothing to show for it until that time. Of course, being the petulant child she is, she went and got herself that ridiculous phoenix tattoo as some pitiful insistence of her claim to his title, a cringe-worthy fuck you to daddy. You can imagine how angry that made him. She’s like you in that way, always pushing and pushing. And spoiled as she is, she thought it right to demand her first mark before those 10 years were up. Poor girl’s last words to her father before his arrest were in anger, and she had no idea. It’s almost sad.”

He shakes his head. “The whole Sozin family has been unworthy of its supposed power for a long time. And now every last one of them has finally fallen. Thanks to you, of course, the Clan has the chance to be reborn.”

He looks at her, a cold glint to his eye, and Suki realizes they all underestimated him as a threat. He isn’t just a brute who seized an opportunity at the Boiling rock—this was a coup he’d been aching for for years. He’d taken careful note of every weakness the Sozin family had, knew them all inside and out, and exploited the hell out of them.

“Is your curiosity assuaged now?” he asks her tauntingly.

Suki says nothing, only stares out the window and tries to containing a wince as the road gets rougher. Her Azula. More broken than she’d realized. She sets her jaw, more determined than ever to take Zhao down. No matter what it takes, to her own detriment, she’s not going to allow the Fire Clan to take anything more away from Azula.

*

There’s something surreal about returning to the safe house after all this time. Suki can’t help but stare at it in awe as they pull up to the driveway, the same way she did when she first arrived here months ago. She wonders for a second if she’d have still taken this assignment if she’d known everything that would occur because of it. The word _yes_ explodes with surprising ferocity inside her. Yes, she would, she’d do it all again.

Still. The sight of it is surreal.

Zhao has to help her out of the car, which is distressing. Still not strong enough to push herself up. She’s strong enough to stand on her own, she’s happy to note, when Zhao loosens his grip on her arm and motions to the three cars full of his people that have followed them up the mountain.

“I want you two out here guarding the perimeter,” he orders. He points to three others. “You can start prepping for our exit.”

Suki shifts her weight from one foot to the other, trying to take stock of what all her body is capable of at the moment. Not much, apparently.

“The rest of you, follow me inside,” Zhao says, turning, and tugging her along with him up the gravel drive.

Walking isn’t easy, and she feels hope beginning to dwindle down inside her. She thought she’d be stronger by now. There’s no way she can get away from him and sprint from the library to the closet upstairs like this, certainly not with both him and a large handful of other men guarding her. She needs more time.

Zhao shoots the lock on the front door open. For a moment, Suki wonders if the house will go into some kind of lockdown mode, the way she’d put into effect the first night.

But it seems completely deactivated. Probably has been since they left. Months ago, now.

“Well?” Zhao prompts. “Lead the way.”

It’s humiliating. Suki limps along just a little in front of him, his hand clamped hard around her arm to make sure she doesn’t try anything. The silence of the house is eerie. Suki’s mind races, trying to remember the layout Sokka had given her, the traps he’d set in each room. She almost feels like smacking herself for having destroyed that clunky control panel he’d wanted her to wear at her wrist that first night. Sure its destruction had been necessary at the time, but it sure as hell would be useful to have right now. Somehow she’s going to have to get to that closet, set the alarms and traps off manually. She hopes she can remember where each one is—the last thing she wants to do is get herself trapped in here as well.

But first things first. She has to buy herself enough time to get strong enough to take more than three steps away without collapsing.

She guides them toward the library, attention catching briefly on the darkened pool room. If she squints, she can see the outlines of all those candles Azula had lit there the night before she escaped.

_This is me not-seducing you._

Suki almost smiles, feels a pang in her chest at the memory of their clumsy back-and-forth. God, the first time she kissed her. She hadn’t had a _clue_ what would happen after that kiss, regretted it at the time, felt like she’d poisoned herself. Now she looks at that room and feels longing. Cold, seemingly heartless Azula. Suki can almost see the memory of her in there and wants to rush in and protect her, even like that, even at her coldest, her most insufferable.

She tears her eyes away, reminding herself that she won’t be able to save _anything_ unless she’s able to reach the controls upstairs.

At last, they arrive at the library. Zhao switches on the light, making his way quickly toward the table and shoving her forward so she has to catch herself on the mahogany top.

“Where are they?” he growls.

Suki straightens up with a slow exhale and nods her head at the far wall. “Fourth shelf from the bottom,” she tells him.

He holds her gaze for a moment, then makes his way over to where she indicated. He pauses as he reaches them.

“Which one?” he asks.

“I don’t remember,” she tells him. “I told you—I just happened upon them. I wasn’t trying to memorize them, I was just trying to pass the time.”

With a scowl, Zhao turns back to the shelf. “There's a dozen of them,” he mutters, beginning to pluck them from their places and bringing them back to the table, spreading them out along the top. He signals to three of the men who followed them inside, handing each of them one of the ledgers. “You get started on these,” he orders. “I’ll start on this one. The first mention of the account you see, you tell me. Nothing else matters.” He looks up at Suki, holding out another ledger to her. “You get started on this one.”

“I don’t feel well,” she tells him.

His eyebrows raise slowly. “And?”

“My vision's blurry. I just need some air. Please.”

“I think you’ll be fine.”

“I feel like I’m gonna be sick,” she presses, and to her credit, this isn’t a complete lie. “Please. You branded me and drugged me, please just let me get some air.”

Zhao considers this, then lifts his gaze to the fourth man. “Take her to the foyer,” he instructs. “Let her have a breath. Metal on her at all times. She’s nowhere near as helpless as she looks.”

She’s disappointed to learn that _metal on her at all times_ means a gun leveled steadily at her head as she slumps down in the middle of the foyer. She’s momentarily grateful for the breeze that slithers through the front door—before the distinctive odor of gasoline reaches her. She looks up to see that two of the men Zhao left outside are unloading cans of the stuff from the car. A third is already starting to pour the contents of one along the base of the porch.

“What are they doing?” she whispers, not meaning to say the words out loud.

Her guard follows her gaze. “Zhao says we’ll be burning this place to the ground once we have the information we’re looking for,” he tells her. “Doesn’t want anyone else knowing about it.”

Son of a bitch. So now she needs to get to the controls upstairs not only before Zhao finds the account information, but also before his goons start preparing for the fire in earnest. Sokka’s funhouse is going to be nightmarish enough without adding a fire to the mix.

She braces herself.

90 seconds. She just has to keep herself together for 90 seconds. That’s it.

With an inward nod, she lets herself roll backwards, as if in a faint. She hears the guard give a surprised curse, feels him kneel beside her—

—She gives a violent twist upward, slamming her fist into his throat with one hand, and grabbing his arm with the other, using his moment of shock and pain to pull him off balance, slamming her elbow into his nose and shivering at the ensuing _crunch_ and warm splatter of blood gushing from him. Using his falling form as a prop, she staggers to her feet, managing to kick the gun away from him.

She means to make a dive for it, would feel so much fucking better with a weapon in hand, but she’s afraid if she bends over, she might not be able to get back up again.

_80 seconds._

She makes a break for the stairs, legs wobbling with each step she takes. What was meant to be a run is a clumsy scramble with her barely grasping at moving in a straight line.

_75 seconds._

She hears the guard give a gurgled wheeze behind her, trying to alert Zhao. The sound barely carries, she managed even in her weakened state to do some serious damage to his windpipe. That’s good. That’s something.

_70 seconds._

She reaches the stairs. Nearly trips. Catches herself and forces herself to propel forward and upward.

_60 seconds._

She can hear the guard stumbling to his feet now. His voice raises this time, managing something closer to a raspy shout.

_50 seconds._

She’s almost at the top of the stairs, moving too slow, way too slow. Has to stop for a second, only a second, her legs are trembling under her and the world seems to be shifting alarmingly sideways.

_49 seconds._

Okay, second’s over.

She resumes her climb, grasping frantically ahead of herself, finally reaching the top and pushing herself forward.

_40 seconds._

Sounds from below. Heavy boots pounding across the foyer, Zhao shouting something indecipherable. She stumbles, catching herself against the wall, uses it to push herself forward again.

_35 seconds._

Those boots are racing up the stairs now, the din sending her nerves on fire. Fucking Element X, how do people _enjoy_ this feeling…?

_30 seconds._

There’s her room, the room she stayed in for seven days. She tries to think. How were the controls to the traps laid out throughout the house, were they set one by one? She can’t remember and the floor seems to be spinning. She grabs onto her doorframe, catches her breath for what she knows is too long.

_20 seconds._

Those boots are so close behind her. With a grunt, she shoves herself forward toward the closet, getting her hand on the handle and pulling with all her might.

_15 seconds._

She doesn’t have much might.

_12 seconds._

She wrestles the door open. There it is. The wall of security footage. The miniature arsenal. Those three colored bars—what do they do again? Is it one by one? How is it—

_5 seconds._

Fuck it, she’s just gonna start hitting things until something happens.

She lunges forward, but a hand grabs her by the hair, pulling her off-balance and tugging her back. Her branded side collides with Zhao and she can’t contain her yelp of pain.

“What do we have here?” Zhao asks, looking around the place in wonder. His eyes catch on the small arsenal, and he smiles. “Still trying to fight me off. I thought we’d reached an agreement.”

He tugs her back along, trying to drag her out the door.

Before he can, she summons all her strength to smack her fist against the panel of colored bars, feeling triumph ignite in her when she makes contact.

She doesn’t know what she was expecting. Maybe for flames to come shooting out of the floor, spikes to drop from the ceilings, or knives to come flying through the walls. Something out of Sokka's favorite video games.

But there's nothing. Nothing is what happens. She and Zhao have both frozen in anticipation of what might occur, but after a moment, Zhao straightens at that horrible nothing like it’s the funniest thing he’s ever encountered.

“Now that was just embarrassing,” he says, and begins pulling her back down the stairs.

With each step, Suki silently pleads with the house, let _this step_ be the one to set it off. But still, nothing happens, and hope dies in her chest. That first night here, when she broke the watch to keep them on lockdown, she must have broken the manual controls altogether. This whole thing was a waste. She can’t fight back, and neither can the house.

Zhao drags her back to the library and shoves her down on the floor. He’s panting, face red, vein in his forehead bulging.

“Shinu,” he growls.

The man called Shinu comes forward, firearm leveled at Suki. Unlike the other guard, Shinu stays out of her immediate reach. That at least gives her some small spark of assurance; ultimately it’s inconvenient, but it’s almost nice to know that they consider her somewhat dangerous.

Everything is quiet then, the quietest, longest half hour she’s ever experienced, and it would almost be funny that Suki is trapped in a library with a handful of hardened criminals reading through accounting records. Would be funny. Except that it’s boiling hot in here, and Suki feels sicker with each second that passes, the fresh brands going up her side throbbing with pain, and the Element X digging in for one last bite before it leaves her system.

She’s just about to collapse when she hears it.

Distantly at first, she thinks it’s just a ringing in her ears. But slowly it begins to swell, joined by more of the same sound, something solid and aggressive.

She sees Zhao and his men look up slowly from their reading, hearing it too, as it grows louder, grows into something recognizable.

Engines, they all realize at the same time. More than just a small few. The low drone of a ’96 Chevy intermingles with the smooth hum of a Tesla roadster, which in turn mingles with the stuttering clanging of a newly fixed-up jeep, which in turn mingles with one or two other smaller vehicles.

Roaring far above the rest is a sound Suki would know anywhere. She nearly got herself killed riding that thing one time. Not a doubt in her mind—that’s Zuko’s prized Kawasaki motorcycle flying up the mountain toward them.

Hope flares to life in her chest, so suddenly and so aggressively, it feels like it’s trying to claw its way out of her throat, brings tears springing to her eyes.It’s followed quickly by a wave of despair washing all that hope right back down into her gut, because the sound of those engines means that Avatar Security has arrived on the scene.

Exactly where she didn’t want them.

The roar of those engines reaches its peak, then cuts suddenly to a deadly silence. Then the sound of car doors slamming, footsteps crunching against the gravel drive.

Zhao and his men get slowly to their feet, having reached the same conclusion as Suki, and all of them jump as an alarm goes blaring suddenly throughout the entire premises.

It must be the violence of the sound that jogs Suki’s memory—that panel in the closet wasn’t to set off individual traps, it was the control to the triple layer of alarms outside. Hitting it wouldn’t have done anything by itself, it simply turned the system on, where it had been deactivated since she’d left. Now though, it’s alive and well, and with Avatar Security striding through the property outside, it’s playing out just as Sokka had said. She remembers it so clearly now.

First: the silent alarm at the edge of the property.

Second: the blaring alarm a few yards in.

And third, once the porch alarm is tripped, the lock on the house’s array of defense systems is released and that—

_That’s where things get fun._

Sokka’s words play out in her head at the same time she hears Sokka—the real Sokka—out there, here to rescue her, shouting at the top of his lungs, “COME GET SOME, BITCHES!”

It’s like he’s given some magic codeword—the third layer of alarms induces a riot of sound, every piece of technologic genius designed by two of Avatar Security’s best inventors is sprung to life, and the ensuing calamity coming from outside suggests nothing short of a war.

Zhao, face crimson and twisted in fury, snatches up his firearm.

“Stay on her,” he snaps at Shinu, and gestures for his other men to follow him, disappearing down the hall.

Suki stares stiff and rapt to attention, barely breathing at the sound of Sokka’s traps, of gunfire, of screaming and cursing from outside. Beside her, she can feel Shinu’s alarm ramping up at each swell of sound.

She swallows hard, thinking quickly, muscles tightening. With him distracted, maybe she can get up, try again, maybe she can—

She jumps as a red blur comes storming abruptly around the corner, metal glinting in the light as one arm extends unerringly in Shinu’s direction. The air seems to shatter with the deafening crack of gunfire, followed by a heavy thump as Shinu collapses to the ground.

Suki’s eyes widen as she casts her gaze up to see that storm of red settle into human form. Blood spattered across her skin, raven hair wild, and amber eyes blazing…Azula. Her Azula. Exactly where she shouldn’t be, doing exactly what she shouldn’t do, never letting Suki do her job, never letting her protect her. Her Azula. Suki feels a shudder rack through her body, and she reaches for her as the calamity reaches a crescendo outside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, super exciting things...killingtheshirtoutofit did some amazing art of this lil fic of mine and I'm sort of losing my mind, so you should go check it out because they're fantastic and got me sitting here with hearts in my eyes...
> 
> https://killingtheshirtoutofit.tumblr.com/post/636917385254797312/based-on-uisceb-amazing-au-fanfic-bridges-to-burn


	24. Chapter 24

What Azula means to do after bursting into the library and shooting Zhao’s goon dead, is grab Suki and book it the fuck out of there as quickly as possible.

Her intentions are completely derailed, however, when she locks eyes with Suki for the first time in what has only been a couple days but feels like an eternity.

And when Suki reaches for her, Azula’s name spilling from her in a broken sob, Azula forgets about reality completely.

Her fury crumbles away, relief bursting through her so painfully she has no choice but to rush forward, dropping to her knees and gathering Suki into her arms, holding her as fiercely as she can. It has to hurt, she knows this, she knows how much pain Suki has to be in, from the abduction, to the beating, to those horrible, horrible marks burned up the length of her side…Azula knows this must be painful, but she holds her tight anyway because whether she wants to admit it or not, she’s spent the last 48 hours terrified she’d never see her again. Suki fits so perfectly against her, and Azula feels a storm of emotions threatening to tear her apart from the inside, made all the worse for the way Suki clutches back at her with all her might.

“I’m sorry,” she hears herself whisper hoarsely, over and over again, pleading. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Suki, I’m so sorry.”

Suki shakes in her arms. “You shouldn’t have come here,” she says. “I was trying to keep you safe, you weren’t supposed to come here…”

“Where the hell else would I be?” Azula asks, holding her impossibly tighter, burying her face in Suki’s hair with a painful sigh and repeating because it’s true, “Where the hell else would I be?”

Even against the backdrop of the calamity outside, she feels Suki grow suddenly calmer, warmer, loosens her grip just the slightest bit, and Azula does the same, bringing them down to a softer hold.

It lasts only the most fleeting of moments, and Azula leans back enough to look at her, cradling her cheek. “Can you walk?” she asks urgently.

The question feels stupid. Suki is alarmingly pale, body littered with abuse, apparently so weak she’s been relegated to the floor. Her eyes flash with fierce determination, though, and she nods.

“It isn’t exactly elegant, but I can do it,” she says.

Azula brushes her thumb gently over her cheekbone. “Okay. That’s okay, I’ll help you.” She gets to her feet, pulling Suki up along with her and angling her so she can support some of her weight.

“I um,” she says, gaze falling to the sort of noticeably dead body of what was once the man guarding Suki. “You know that time you asked me if I’d ever killed anyone, and I said no?” She bites the inside of her cheek. “Might’ve killed a couple to get to you.”

Suki breathes out a laugh in spite of herself. “I think I can let those few slide,” she says.

“Good. Because I think there’s about to be a few more. You ready?”

Suki looks at her and it’s with an expression of absolute trust that terrifies Azula. She doesn’t know what the hell she did that has somehow convinced Suki she’s worthy of her trust, but the idea that she might fail her causes fear to take sudden and firm root in her gut.

“I’m ready,” Suki affirms.

Azula blows out a slow breath. “Okay. Just hold tight to me.”

They make their way as quickly as they can from the library to the hall, and Azula isn’t sure whether it was easier dragging an _unconscious_ Suki from a burning building, or half-supporting a _conscious_ Suki right into the throes of a battlefield.

Because a battlefield really is the best way to describe it.

Before leaving for the safe house, Sokka gave Azula a brief description of what the intended use of the place had been before Zuko decided to repurpose it as a safe house for her.

“It’s basically like if the _Home_ _Alone_ franchise and the _Saw_ franchise had a baby,” he told her.

“It’s not like that at all, not even a little,” Sokka’s techie counterpart Teo had said, rolling his eyes. “Not on the first floor anyway. But…I mean some of the methods we were experimenting with are definitely…I mean, I’d be lying if I said they were a pleasant experience. Mixture of low-tech and hight-tech. Hopefully the place will still be deactivated when you get there. If you guys are gonna be going head-to-head with a bunch of heavily-armed mobsters, you don’t want that kind of chaos added into the mix, someone’s bound to lose an eye.”

As it so happens, one of Zhao’s men lost an eye not 10 seconds after Azula and the rest of Avatar Security’s Alpha team crossed the threshold.

And Azula isn’t about to admit this to anyone, but that was very nearly _her_ eye instead.

They learned very quickly upon entering that not only is the house very much activated, it also doesn’t appear to be taking sides. The one silver lining is that Avatar Security at least knew the _possibility_ was there for the house to be a danger. Zhao and his men were completely unprepared.

The main thing now, as she and Suki make their way forward, is to look out for the floor. That’s where most of the sensors are, Teo explained to her. Stepping _over_ the threshold to any room is the best way to avoid setting off any unnecessary traps, but there are still places along the baseboards in between the halls that can trip various other dangers.

For better or worse, by the time Azula and Suki have made their way toward the open center of the house where the majority of the fighting is taking place, most of the sensors have already been tripped. While this does make for less surprises, it also means complete and utter pandemonium, having escalated ten-fold since Azula split off from the rest of their company to find Suki.

She’d been surprised, upon first entering the house, at the simplicity of the first wave of defense. Given Sokka’s rather distinct lack of subtlety, she’d imagined the first defense would involve an explosion of some kind. Or lasers. Somehow she’d very much pictured lasers.

Instead, it was just about as low-tech as could possibly be. As soon as she and her team crossed the threshold, a thousand or so tiny steel ball bearings had dropped from a compartment in the ceiling, leaving the things to bounce and roll and scatter against the floor. With the two factions of fighters charging toward each other, it was like watching an army being taken out by a series of banana peels. One foot on one of those ball bearings was all it took to roll and slip right on your ass, and if you were unlucky enough to land on one of them as you came crashing down, they hurt like hell, and it was difficult to regain your footing.

The pure cartoonish-ness of it had Sokka’s name written all over it.

Now, as she and Suki rejoin their ranks, it would appear that the rest of the house’s defenses are quite a bit less comical, quite a bit more perilous.

On the bright side, somehow, one of their team seems to have managed to get the floor clear of those ball bearings so remaining upright is no longer an issue. On the not-so-bright side… _there_ are the lasers, forming a deadly latticework across the windows and doorways across a few of the rooms, which seems to have resulted in the near-severing of one of her men’s hand.

There also, are several rows of mounted automatic rifles now uncovered from opposite sides of the hall on the far end of the entryway, sending a spray of rubber bullets into the fray. And across from that, a similar wall of rifles shooting out what Azula believes are poison darts of some kind—between them and the rubber bullets, several members on both sides of the battle have been felled, either unconscious, or badly injured. Multiple tiles in the flooring have slid open to reveal rows of metal spikes as sharp as daggers, long enough to rip through the bottoms of one’s shoes and dig up into the foot. And there, from the top of the stairs, a waterfall of some mix of simultaneously slippery and sludge-like liquid floods down the steps.

Azula is fairly certain there were more defenses at one time, but several seem to have been taken out in the midst of the brawl—bare electrical live wires hiss dangerously along the walls, and various pieces of metal and plastic hardware lie strewn about the floor, some protruding from the walls.

This is all to say nothing of the fighting between defenses. Much like Zhao’s hideout in the office complex, only exponentially worse, the absolute chaos rampaging through the entire house makes gunfire an exceedingly horrible idea, so most have fallen to hand-to-hand combat, knives and other close-range weapons flashing and clattering against each other.

Azula scans the wide open layout of the house, trying, between the blur of bodies clashing and projectiles firing, to discern the safest path to get Suki out of here. She’s determined to join the fray eventually so as to hunt Zhao down and separate him from his limbs, but first, she needs to know that Suki is no longer in any danger. She just needs to work her way through the tangle of the masses, get Suki to Zuko’s car, and come back to the house to butcher Zhao. Easy enough.

Alright, not easy enough. She hands one of her blades to Suki for what little good it will do them, drawing her own, and beginning to pick her way through, skirting the edge of the melee.

It doesn’t go nearly as smoothly as she’d hoped. Bodies push and shove at each other, and she’s knocked nearly to her knees, almost bringing Suki down with her, and narrowly avoiding one of the spiked tiles. She raises her blade in defense as one of Zhao’s men brings his arm swinging down on her, and Suki dips, one leg sweeping out to catch at his feet, bringing him crashing down onto the jagged tile.

Azula finds herself smiling a little savagely despite herself. As haphazard as their movements are, she and Suki make a pretty good team, even like this.

They’re buffeted back and forth, between the fighting masses, and the unpredictability of the house’s defenses, making the path to the entryway painfully slow and treacherous, full of setbacks, and near-misses. Azula pulls Suki aside just in the nick of time as an electric arc splits dangerously from one of the hissing live wires against the wall.

The spray of projectiles doesn’t seem to be letting up—Azula has no idea how much ammunition Sokka and Teo managed to pack into their design, but if anything, it seems to be ramping up rather than slowing down. As weapons slice through the wiring of the house’s defenses, the defenses fluctuate from roaring to a frightening crescendo, to sputtering out, and rising up again. It’s causing far more damage than either side of the warring factions is.

And the other fighters seem to be realizing this too. The pressure is shaking the very foundation of the house, the wiring of all these battered mechanics beginning to short-circuit.

Azula’s eyes widen as a surge in power, perhaps brought on by over-use, perhaps brought on by further impact of the out-of-control brawl, goes tearing through the live wires, sending a barrage of electric arcs snapping violently into the room.

Heads turn and alarm skyrockets across the masses as thin wisps of white smoke begin to curlupward, and flames flicker to life in multiple points along the perimeter of the house.

Fantastic. That’s what they need right now, they need a fucking fire, what else was Azula expecting?

The frenetic energy of the melee shifts into something new—they all seem to come to the same conclusion, that there’s no real point in continuing to fight each other when the house seems bound and determined to kill them all. The fight swells and disperses, then clashes together again as flames leap up the walls, and both factions struggle to evacuate the house, pulling injured friends along with them, or shoving enemies forwards and back to spill into further tangles outside.

Azula and Suki are pulled along in the tide of evacuating bodies. With the laser latticework barring the windows, the only exit is through the front door, pushing them all against each other. Unstable as they are, Azula and Suki are forced to the back of the crowd.

Azula searches the crowd with her eyes, sees Zuko half-supporting Sokka much in the same way she’s half-supporting Suki. Almost like he can sense her gaze on him, Zuko looks up, locking eyes with her from across the masses. He says something to Sokka, who looks over with a jerk, his eyes finding Suki. Relief washes over his features, and it seems to be the permission they need to begin evacuating as well.

It almost seems okay for a minute. She and Suki are still in the back, but Azula can see Zuko and Sokka get out, and beyond them at the far perimeter of the property outside, is Avatar Security’s Beta team, firearms trained on the masses as they exit. Those of Zhao’s gang that have the strength to do so lift their hands, or get down on their knees in clumsy surrender. Suki presses her free hand to Azula’s side in some gesture of relief, that they’ve finally made it, just feet away from the door. All that’s missing from the picture is Zhao, and that almost doesn’t seem to matter as long as Suki—

Azula feels the sharp impact of her knee hitting the floor before she registers the crack of the gun. _Clumsy_ , she thinks for a moment. Must’ve tripped over some last remaining ball bearing.

It isn’t until Suki turns to her, staring down at her, her face draining into a look of horror, that Azula feels the searing pathway of the bullet that just tore through her ribs to sink into something soft and fatal inside her. The burning heat of it somehow turns her veins to ice, shivering tendrils racing from point of impact up her spine, drawing a cold sweat in their wake, limbs suddenly shaking.

 _Oh there’s Zhao_ , she thinks stupidly, gaze slipping to the side as it catches on something metallic and glinting. He’s barely holding himself upright, one arm braced against the sideboard not ten feet from where she’s currently kneeling, other hand shakily pointing a still smoking pistol at her. He’s pasty and bleeding heavily from several wounds across his torso. With a sort of distant savagery, Azula hopes it was Sokka who did that to him.

“Azula…” she hears Suki gasp, feels Suki’s hands tugging at her, trying to pull her to her feet. Azula feels very heavy, feels herself sinking, feels thick, hot liquid spilling from where the bullet hit her stomach.

Darkness edges into the corners of her eyes and she wants to look at Suki more than anything, but keeps her eyes on Zhao instead, sees the way the gun shakes in his hand, sees him lifting it just slightly, attention shifting to Suki.

_No._

With a desperate grasp for what little strength remains in her, Azula lunges forward and upward, using her momentum to shove Suki back as hard as she can, sending her stumbling over the threshold to the relative safety outside. Consequently, the shot intended for Suki hits Azula in the side and she collapses completely this time, sprawled on her bleeding stomach.

Blearily, she sees Zuko helping Suki to her feet outside. She feels more than hears the heavy thump of Zhao’s boots as he makes for the doorway, gun still outstretched. Azula can tell from the clumsiness of his steps that he knows he’s lost, even knows that he’s dying—but it appears he intends to take Suki, who cost him everything, down with him.

Azula forces her thoughts to focus through the fog gathering in her head, thinks as quickly as she can. Her eyes catch on the abandoned can of gasoline one of Zhao’s goons dropped upon Avatar Security’s initial entry. The liquid is pooling slowly across the doorway, harmless for now, but with the slowly-approaching flames…

Azula reaches blindly around herself, fingers closing around the edge of a burning picture frame that must have dropped from the wall at some point during the brawl. Zhao has almost reached the doorway, and she _knows_ Suki is trying to come back for her. And if she does…

Zhao grips the gun with both hands to keep it steady, nearly at the threshold, and there’s really only one way to stop him from getting to Suki. Gathering the very last of her reserves, Azula hurls the burning picture frame at the doorway, watching it hit the pool of gasoline just before Zhao can reach it.

The doorway bursts into flame with a roar, and Zhao stumbles back as it leaps and billows in an explosive spiral, barring his exit, creating a swirling wall of fire to keep him from Suki. And Suki from her.

She hears Suki scream her name from outside as the fire roars wider and higher across the front wall of the house, and imagines, because she knows them, that Zuko is holding Suki with all his might to keep her from leaping in after her. Azula rolls onto her back, a sort of calm washing over her even as smoke begins to fill her lungs.

“Sorry, angel,” she breathes, finding a small, lopsided smile tugging at her lips. She manages to push herself back just enough to lean up against the bannister of the stairs, hand landing on something hot and metallic. She lifts her chin with as much pride as she can as Zhao wheels on her, eyes blazing.

“You stupid bitch!” he snarls. “You’ve trapped us both!”

She feels her lopsided smile pull wider into a grin. “Don’t tell me you’re afraid of a little fire, Zhao,” she utters. “Not very becoming of the self-proclaimed leader of the Fire Clan.”

With a roar, he turns the gun on her again, but this time, she’s ready. Her fingers close securely around the metal her hand landed on, index finger finding the trigger, and she lifts the fallen pistol and fires with an almost careless ease brought on by the stark finality of this moment. She hits her mark squarely between the eyes, revels in the earsplitting crack and thump as Zhao collapses to the floor, and drops the gun with a clatter, every ounce of energy finally drained from her.

From outside, she hears Suki cry her name again, even over the roar of the fire. A painful sound.

It’s good though, she thinks. This is good. This is how it’s supposed to go.

She lets her eyes slip closed, finds herself musing distantly, almost dreamlike, that Ozai was right about how unpleasant the smoke is when you have to burn away a connection. More in the literal sense, though. In the metaphorical sense, she thinks that connection to Suki might have been the best thing ever to happen to her, and burning it away to save her…a little smoke is worth it to keep Suki alive. And her brother. Hell, even Sokka. She could do without the burning sensation curling through her, but worth it, in the end.

In any case, it won’t go on too much longer. That’s okay. That’s good.

She barely flinches at the sound of a window crashing. Expects there will be more where that came from the hotter it gets in here.

But it isn’t heat that caused that window to shatter. With great difficulty, she pries her eyes open at the sound of shoes pounding unevenly across the floor, another, larger crash as something smashes against the outer wall and a narrow path of cooler air rushes in at her.

She squints through the smoke, through the fog in her mind, as something lands beside her. Not something. Someone. And another someone on her other side. Hands on her arms now, pulling her up. Azula peers as hard as she can through her failing vision, and gives a sputtered laugh at what she’s able to bring into focus.

“You’ve gotta stop throwing yourself into fire,” she mumbles, her throat burning at each word. “S’Bad fucking habit.”

“Where the hell else would I be?” Suki returns sounding pained, and Azula means to respond, thinks she’s on the verge of coming up with a word, or a syllable, or a letter, but at the same time Suki and Zuko begin to pull her forward, she feels herself slip headlong into utter darkness.


	25. Chapter 25

Suki has never been so anxious to step foot inside a hospital.

In regards to her own injuries, she doesn’t have to go to the hospital at all. Katara is more than capable of treating her burns, and while there’s no denying how bruised and battered she is, there’s nothing permanently debilitating, and when the last lingering traces of Element X are purged violently from her system, she can almost pass for a functional human being.

Others of Avatar Security are not so lucky. Everyone is still breathing, thank god, but it’s touch and go for some, even days afterward. Sokka is sporting a broken fibula which, at the time of being reset, delirious from blood loss and hopped up on the painkillers he snuck even though Katara told him explicitly not to, he thought was the funniest word ever invented. Almost laughed himself into a coma, speaking in what he decided was a “doctor voice” and making loud proclamations diagnosing himself with _Fibula,_ or _Fibuliticus Totalus_ as the _Rrrrrrromans_ would say, and perhaps they might have to _defibrillate his fibula and titillate his tibia_ which Katara was too busy and exasperated to dignify with an actual response.

Aside from some nasty-looking cuts and bruises, Zuko got out of things relatively undamaged. Toph is nursing a bruised ego that she didn’t get to “whoop any Fire Clan ass” and has complained of a splitting headache from damage done to her comm system during the attack on the safe house, but she too is mostly unscathed. The rest of their strike team is split fairly evenly between those who could be tended to by Avatar Security’s medical team, and those who need to be rushed to the ER.

Azula falls squarely in the latter camp, and upon laying eyes on her after Suki and Zuko pulled her free of the house, Katara had expressed concerns over whether she would even make it to the ER alive, even with the supporting medic team on the way.

Suki had choked down the lump of sickening emotion that threatened to overtake her at Katara’s words, forced herself to let go, to let Azula be handed over to people who actually stood a chance at saving her, who knew that holding as tight to someone as possible and saying _please_ and _I love you_ and _don’t leave me_ aren’t powerful enough on their own to keep someone alive, no matter how many times you say them or how fiercely.

She rode with Zuko down the mountain, curled up in the passenger seat, hugging her knees tight to her chest, counting each passing second and trying not to think that with each one, Azula was slipping further and further away from her. Tried not to think about the blood that had dribbled from her mouth, or the parched peeling of her lips, or the thin rattle of her voice when she tried to speak, or the dazed look in her eyes, the way she could barely breathe without coughing, the way each cough only hastened the flow of blood from her body…

Suki doesn’t really breathe herself until almost eight hours later when she finally receives a text from Zuko. He’s been in damage control mode since they first reached the city limits, going back and forth between checking on Sokka back at headquarters, making several stops at Republic City General to check for updates on how Azula is pulling through surgery, and putting in multiple carefully-calculated calls to deal with the two explosive bouts of gang warfare Avatar Security participated in.

Any other time, Suki would be curious to know exactly how he’s covering them, which contacts he’s now left with no option but to use in the RCPD, how he’s having to spin the story, the documentation he’s having to provide…Suki can’t even imagine. These were aggressive moves on their part, and while it’s hardly the first time Avatar Security has engaged in tactical offense, it has always been done in careful conjunction with law enforcement in order to protect the business. Suki isn’t sure how much Zuko and Aang used for resources or support this time, if any, or if they’ll be able to make a claim that these assaults technically fell within their rights as a security company to engage in. This is where the real business savvy comes out in Zuko, a side to him that—while ultimately used for good these days—was likely honed in him from a young age from having grown up in the Sozin household.

Suki doesn’t know how he’s able to compartmentalize and deal with these never-ending sieges of complications in a way that’s almost… _elegant…_ meanwhile, she’s just trying to put one thought in front of the other. And given that each thought revolves around Azula, any curiosity she might have had toward Zuko’s business acrobatics is gone completely, replaced by anxieties of everything that has gone wrong, that could go wrong, that will go wrong.

Starting with the hospital itself.

Republic City General is overrun, due not only to their company’s engagement with the Fire Clan, but from what Katara has always referred to as the Curse of Friday Night.

“Hottest club in town on a Friday,” she’s often grumbled about the ER. _“Everyone_ who’s decided to wait until 4:55 on a Friday afternoon to tell their doctor they’ve been coughing up blood all week, or swallowed something that never should’ve been in their mouth the day before, or have been throwing up for 12 hours straight, gets told to go to the ER. Then there’s just Friday night stupidity, overdoses, fights, car crashes left and right. It’s a fucking circus, I do not miss the days of working at Rep Gen for a _second_.”

That said, visitors to the hospital are limited to one family relation only, and only for a limited amount of time.

In other words, not Suki.

For eight hours, she waits on pins and needles. She’s exhausted, and anxious, and Katara won’t let her go home, saying she wants to keep her at headquarters for observation. Suki knows there isn’t any real need for observation—the heavy dose of Element X has finally worked its way out of her system, and there’s nothing more to be done about the burns beyond what Katara’s done already. She’s in pain, but she isn’t in any kind of emergent state, there’s nothing to observe.

She’s fairly certain Katara just wants to keep an eye on her so she doesn’t try to barge her way into the ER anyway. She’s intuitive like that. Suki was willing to let go of Azula to get her to Rep Gen in the first place, but now that she’s there, Suki’s patience and rationality are beginning to wear thin. So she’s in for a transfusion, for emergency surgery, and then what? Then what? Why can’t she go with her? What’s taking so long? Why won’t anyone tell her anything? Does she have to march in there and do it herself? How hard can it possibly be to dig a couple bullets out of someone and put some blood back in them, _she_ could do it if someone would just let her in…

When she starts to voice some of these thoughts in an increasingly manic way, Katara gives her a long-suffering sigh and mutters something about how it’s always the patient’s friends and family who create more problems than there were in the first place and if they could just cool their jets for five minutes, things would go a lot smoother.

And then she insists that Suki stay overnight at headquarters and help her look after Sokka.

Yes, look after Sokka. Sokka, who has begun singing a completely nonsensical song he made up about _fibulas_ and how they’ll _fib to ya, and leave ya with no mem’rabilia…_ at which point he runs out of words that sort of rhyme and falls to making percussion noises with his mouth.

Suki remains glued to her phone, waiting for Zuko to text her with any updates on Azula’s condition. Hours-long radio silence has her stomach twisting into endless knots, none of which is helped by the lingering nausea from smoke inhalation, or the amount of abuse her body has had to endure for the last several days.

At last, she forces herself to take a shower in the locker room, keeping her phone within reach. She does her best to keep her branded side out of direct contact with the heavy stream of water, hissing when an errant spray hits.

When she steps out, she makes her way to the full-length mirror, steeling herself for what she’s about to see. She pauses for a moment to make sure she’s alone, then lets the towel drop, and takes inventory of what’s been done to her.

She stares for a long time at the curve of brands going up her side, trying to find an emotion to match up to what she sees. Maybe she’s still just shellshocked from the whole ordeal, but she finds that she doesn’t feel anything at all as she looks at them. Just numb. She counts them—15 total, she thinks, though some overlap and are unclear in shape.

None so bad as what used to be Azula’s mark. The one that was supposed to protect her. The one that’s been twisted and mangled beyond recognition.

Gingerly, she touches her fingers to it, wanting to know if Zhao was right, that she’d be unable to feel anything there anymore. It’s unsettling when she does make contact. The skin is raw and rippled, feels hardly like skin at all.

Zhao was right, and wrong at the same time—right in the fact that physically, there’s no sensation across the inch-and-half span of skin affected by the brand.

No physical sensation at all.

But at the same time, it seems to hurt the most of all of them.

Azula’s mark has been a lot of things to Suki over the years—a mark of failure, a mark of shame, a mark of loss, a mark of pride, a mark of possession, a mark of connection. It was something Azula used to claim her, and then something Suki used to force a reaction out of Azula. More recently, it was a mark Azula would caress gently, or press her lips to, or even rest her head against if she happened to linger there after sex. Suki has hated this mark with every fiber of her being, and she’s loved it sometimes, too.

But regardless of her constantly changing feelings toward it, she’d always assumed it would be a permanent fixture on her body. It was _Azula’s_ mark, not a mark of the Fire Clan.

Now it’s just this twisted sign of damage. The other brands hurt, they’re ugly, and eventually, she knows, emotions of some kind will bubble up in her at the knowledge that they’re a part of her now, that a piece of Zhao is forever burned into her body.

But it’s the destruction of Azula’s mark that she mourns. She almost thinks that if that one at least could have remained in tact, the rest wouldn’t matter.

Steadying herself with a shaky exhale, she puts on a spare set of Avatar Security sweats, grateful for the soft, loose material, nothing rubbing up against her side. She makes her way back to where she left the clothes she’s been stuck in since being abducted, and picks up her phone.

She nearly drops it in surprise when it buzzes in her hand, breath catching as Zuko’s name pops up on her screen, and below it:

_She’s okay._

Suki stares at the text, heart pounding, waiting urgently for the next part.

But there is no next part. Just: _She’s okay._

That’s it.

“Fuck’s sake, Sokka, teach your boyfriend how to text better,” she mutters under her breath, tapping on Zuko’s name and deciding to just call him if he’s really going to be this bad at communication.

_“Hey,”_ Zuko answers. He sounds exhausted.

“Hey yourself,” Suki returns, unable to keep the edge from her voice. “So she’s…she’s okay?”

_“Yeah, she pulled through,”_ Zuko says. _“Apparently she’s been out of surgery for hours now and they just now got it in their heads to call me. I mean I get that they’re overrun, but fuck…”_

“Are you in there with her now?” Suki interrupts. “Is she—can I talk to her?”

_“I haven’t seen her yet,”_ Zuko tells her. _“I was just finishing up talking to the doctor. She’s resting now, they don’t want me going in until she’s recovered a bit more.”_

“Well what’d the doctor say?” This is like pulling fucking teeth, trying to get Zuko to actually communicate.

_“He said she’s tough,”_ Zuko says. _“Apparently when she was first coming to, she tried to punch one of the nurses in the nose. Didn’t do much damage, I guess she doesn’t have the mobility or control to do much more than flop her arm a little, but…I’d say that’s a pretty good sign she’s going to be okay.”_

Suki isn’t sure whether the sound she makes can be classified as more of a laugh or more of a sob. Either way, she feels relief flood through her like the return of a tide, filling her chest with something warm and alive, winding around every muscle in her body. Tears gather painfully in her eyes, and she slumps against the wall.

“How long ’til she gets out?” she finally has the wherewithal to ask, voice hoarse.

_“The doctor said it’ll be a solid week, maybe week and a half,”_ Zuko says. _“They’ve got visiting hours…I promise I’ll tell you as soon as I know more. I just wanted you to know she’s good.”_

She’s good. Just those two words make Suki feel simultaneously like she can fly, and can finally collapse.

“Thanks, Zuko,” she whispers, and yes, now she’s sinking to the floor, but it’s with relief this time.

_“I’ll be in touch,”_ he promises again, and hangs up.

She’s good. She’s okay. Suki wants to fly to the hospital, break through into Azula’s room, hold her hand, wrap her arms around her, be there when she wakes up. But with her phone in her hand and Zuko’s words keeping her grip mostly on reality, she gets to her feet and makes her way to the infirmary instead, where Sokka is finally sober and watching cartoons, his broken leg wrapped in a cast and elevated. Without preamble, Suki gets on the bed with him and snuggles into his side.

He puts his arm around her with a wince, and she sighs, feeling safe for the first time in what feels like forever.

“So this is super flattering, but I’m about to be a married man,” Sokka says after a minute.

Suki snorts, maybe laughs too hard for what it is, relief making her swing from one emotional extreme to the other, and she jabs him in the side.

Sokka yelps. “Don’t _do_ that, I’m a fragile boy right now!”

“And I’m a fragile girl so you’re gonna shut up and let me snuggle.” This feels good, to talk to someone like nothing happened, like nothing’s changed. Things are normal, she can breathe again, it’s safe.

“Ugh, fine, but only because you’re being so romantic about it,” Sokka sighs dramatically.

Suki jabs him in the side again and he makes what is best described as a squeak.

“What do you mean you’re about to be a married man?” Suki asks with another breath of a laugh, snuggling back down. “You’ve been talking about marrying Zuko since you first laid eyes on him and we made that bet to see who could sweep him off his feet first. Don’t tell me you finally got the balls to ask him.”

“I didn’t ask him. I jammed a ring on his finger and told him he had absolutely no choice in the matter.”

Suki perks her head up, looking at him critically. “You’re serious.”

“As a heart attack,” he confirms.

She smacks his chest.

“Ouch! Stop hitting me, woman!” he yelps.

“The _hell,_ Sokka? We were gonna plan some super romantic way for you to propose to him, together!” she exclaims.

“We _were,_ but then you got yourself kidnapped and I panicked! Anyway, Zuko and I were armed to the teeth and about to go on a blood-soaked rampage through the city, what’s more romantic than that? Plus I slapped his ass for good measure, if that helps.”

_“While_ you were proposing to him?”

“Obviously.”

“I guess that’s not a bad proposal,” Suki grumbles. The corner of her mouth twitches into a smile, the first she’s smiled in days. She reaches up and ruffles the end of his wolftail. “Congratulations,” she says, sinking back down and hugging him tight.

“Thank you.” He squeezes back and it’s bone-crushing but wonderful all the same. He lets out a long sigh. “I’m just so glad you’re okay. I don’t know what I would’ve done if I lost you.”

They’re both quiet for a time before Suki murmurs, “Thanks for letting me drive your jeep through the wall of the safe house to rescue Azula.”

“Did I let you? I kinda remember you stumbling like a drunk for it and flooring it without asking.”

“You’re the one who threw the brick through the window to break through that whole…laser…thing.”

“Yeah well.” He sounds defensive. “Barbecued Azula didn’t sound all that appetizing. Also. I wasn’t gonna just let her die, not when she was ready to give her life for you.”

Suki curls her fingers in his shirt, tries not to think about how differently that could have gone. Shuts each thought, each memory down, doesn’t have the reserves to deal with them now.

“So. I gotta ask,” Sokka says hesitantly after a moment. “You and Azula…are you like…” he curls the fingers of one hand into a hole, and pistons the middle and index fingers of his other hand in and out of the hole a couple times.

“Wow, Sokka, are you twelve?” Suki drawls, feeling color rise in her cheeks nevertheless.

“Okay fine, is it more like…” He reconfigures his hands into a heart shape.

Suki huffs out a laugh. “It’s both, if you must know.”

Sokka grunts thoughtfully, seeming to mull that over for a time.

Finally, he says, “Not to brag, but I got the _nice_ Sozin sibling.”

Suki jabs him in the side again. “Shut up, Sokka,” she says, and snuggles back down.

*

Azula is asleep when Suki visits her in the hospital.

She looks small, is Suki’s first thought. Not a word she associates with Azula often. Physically, Azula’s a little taller than her, and then personality-wise…definitely nothing small about that.

But right now, she does, she looks small, and vulnerable, and it makes Suki ache. She walks quietly to the bed, hesitating for just a moment before running her fingers gently through Azula’s hair, tucking it behind her ear. Her skin has been scrubbed clean of all that blood that had been splattered across it, and she smells like hospital soap, too sterile, masking the scent Suki has gotten to know so well.

But it’s her, and her skin is warm and soft under Suki’s hand, chest rising and falling in slow full breaths, the steady beeping of the heart monitor reaffirming that yes, yes she’s okay, she’s not going anywhere, Suki hasn’t lost her.

Small, though. She just looks so small. Suki cradles her cheek, traces her jaw, knows she should let her rest but would give anything for her to wake up. The heart monitor affirms that she’s still alive, but Suki doesn’t think she’ll be fully relieved until she gets to look into those amber eyes again, or hear her say something—anything—in that warm, teasing drawl.

Suki makes herself as comfortable as she can in the seat by the window. She’ll just wait here until Azula wakes up. Shouldn’t be long, she’s sure. Azula’s been varying shades of unconscious for the past…what, almost 24 hours now? She’ll wake up soon, and she’ll look at Suki, one eyebrow arched, cocky half-smile in place, and say something snarky and endearing, and Suki will hold on tight to her and never let go. All she has to do is wait for her to wake up.

Hours pass, and the sky darkens outside, signaling street lamps to switch on below. Someone comes by to let Suki know they’re shutting down the ward to visitors at this time, and Azula still hasn’t opened her eyes. Sudden anxiety starts to gnaw at Suki’s insides. What if Zuko was wrong, what if she _isn’t_ okay?

She calls him once she’s been shooed out of the hospital like some annoying pest.

“Did you actually speak to her?” she asks into the phone, not bothering with a hello.

_“Suki?”_ Zuko asks, sounding like she just woke him up.

“I was there in the room with her for hours and she didn’t open her eyes,” Suki tells him urgently. “Maybe they were wrong, maybe she isn’t doing well—I tried to tell one of the nurses but he said she was fine, but if she wasn’t opening her eyes…”

_“She_ is _fine,”_ Zuko says. _“I visited with her like an hour before you got there, and she was wide awake, asking about you, making sure you were okay.”_

“But she was asleep the entire time I was there.”

_“I don’t know, Suki, she just went through a pretty major surgery…not to mention everything that led up to it,”_ Zuko points out. _“I’m sure she’ll be up to a visit from you tomorrow, she just needs to rest.”_

But Azula isn’t up to a visit the next day. Suki gets a text from Zuko that morning stating only:

_She’s refusing visitors_

So of course Suki has to call him up and demand just what the fuck _that_ means.

_“I mean, she doesn’t_ have _to accept visitors,”_ Zuko tells her. _“Just give her time. She’s dealing with more than just physical pain right now. Maybe she just needs to be alone to process things.”_

Suki tries to be comforted by his words. It makes sense—Azula is a much more private person than Suki is, and she _does_ have a lot to process. Not just the loss of her Clan, but the fact that she _killed_ people she’d once imagined she would lead. Then there’s her pride. Azula has only ever wanted to be seen at her best, at her strongest. It’s not so hard to believe that she wouldn’t want Suki, or anyone else, seeing her when she’s wounded and weaker. And of course, of _course_ she’s probably tired. She almost died…

…The thing is, if Suki was in her place, nearly dying would make her want to see Azula all the sooner.

But Azula is different, she reminds herself. She’s processing things her way. It’s okay.

Suki becomes less and less convinced of this with every passing day.

It isn’t until Zuko’s next text, eight fucking days later, that hope sparks in her chest:

_She’s being discharged tomorrow, gonna stay at my place. Come over 4ish._

And maybe Suki was an idiot for believing it would be that simple.

*

“What do you mean she isn’t here?”

The words come out more accusatorially than Suki intended, and she immediately regrets them. It isn’t a fair question, she knows that. If Azula has decided to pull a disappearing act not six hours after being discharged from a ten-day hospital stay, it isn’t Zuko’s fault.

“I mean…she left,” Zuko tells her, one shoulder leaned against the doorjamb, hands jammed in his pockets. “She got here, packed up some clothes, and headed out the door.”

“Took the Kawasaki with her,” Sokka adds.

“I don’t understand,” Suki says, even though somewhere in there, she really does understand. Hates that she understands. “Where would she have gone? Did she say anything to you?”

“Just…not to follow,” Zuko says.

“She also managed a thank you for once, so that was a nice surprise,” Sokka offers.

“Where would she be though?” Suki presses. “There has to be somewhere that you know of, Zuko, some safe place? Your family probably has other properties she could go to, right?”

“Sure, Ozai owned various places throughout the city, but those would have been seized after his arrest,” Zuko says.

“Well is she still in danger?” Suki asks urgently. “Maybe she’s in trouble, maybe someone got to her—“

Zuko shakes his head. “Zhao was the main force gunning for her, and he’s gone,” he tells her. “Without the attempted monopoly, warfare’s been simmering down over the past week. From what some of my guys down at the docks have told me, most of the Fire Clan is breaking up into smaller factions focused more on a broader market. I mean things are still in a state of upheaval, but it’s quieting down, no one has any reason to go after Azula.”

He runs his fingers through his shaggy hair, putting his thoughts in order before speaking. “Most important though,” he says, “before we came to get you, Azula met with Long Feng and the Warden—this old Family friend of my father’s. She renounced her title in front of the Earth Clan leader, and the guy most likely to start rebuilding the Fire Clan. She’s formally stepped down and given the reins to someone else. She no longer has a target on her back from the Clan side of things, and I’ve got my contacts with the Feds looking into tracking down the worst of the worst. They’re actually commending Avatar Security as a crucial part in ‘aiding the local police’ in a long-planned-out sting. That’s…how I’ve spun it, anyway.”

“While trying not to choke,” Sokka puts in.

And that’s all great, Suki’s relieved that Azula is no longer a target, and she’s glad Zuko has been able to work his magic in keeping Avatar Security in the clear. But none of that answers her most pressing question. The one Zuko can sense welling in her again.

“I don’t know where she is, Suki,” he tells her before she can ask. “I’m sorry. I didn’t expect her to run.”

Suki should have expected it though. She should have known.

But if not a place to go off of, would there be a person…?

There could be.

It’s a long shot, but if there was anyone who _would_ know…

“Any chance you’d know how to get in contact with Ty Lee?” Suki asks.

Zuko searches her eyes, reading the desperation there, then sighs. “I’ll see what I can find out,” he tells her.

*

Ty Lee meets her at Zuko’s uncle’s cafe uptown the following morning. Suki orders a small black coffee, much to Iroh’s despair; Ty Lee orders jasmine tea and more pastries than Suki has ever seen one small girl put away so quickly. Iroh approves of her much more.

Suki doesn’t know if she’s ever had the thought to compare a human being to an actual ray of sunshine, but here she is, soft, bright, and kind, dressed head to toe in pink, gray eyes warm, a smile that could light up a room—that _does_ light up the room.

_She was gentle,_ Azula had told Suki months ago. And in a lifetime of not-gentle things, how could Azula do anything _but_ fall for her?

Gone is the shadow Suki remembers from Ba Sing Se Military Academy. Gone, also, is the girl from the pictures in Azula’s photo albums, the singular object of Azula’s very rare affections. Ty Lee is full of boundless life, and talks to Suki like they’ve known each other for years, shows her pictures, is extremely tactile for someone who’s known her all of 20 minutes.

“Yellow!” she says suddenly, when she takes Suki’s hand in both of hers, seemingly unprompted. She creases her brow thoughtfully. “With some orange, too.” She smiles. “You two must butt heads a lot!”

“We…what?”

“Your _aura,”_ Ty Lee explains. “Azula is red, of course. Orange and yellow are indicative of a strong will too, I’m not surprised she’s in love with you, even if you don’t always see eye-to-eye.”

Suki feels color tinge her cheeks. “How did you…so you’ve seen her recently? You’ve talked to her? About…about me? Do you know where she is?”

Ty Lee shakes her head, smiling a little sadly. “I haven’t spoken to her in months,” she says. “But Zuko told me a little when he asked me to meet with you. You know, that you’ve been looking after her, and she got hurt trying to save you, that she disappeared.” She holds her hands out, like she’s feeling the air around Suki. “Plus you’re radiating all this energy, it’s very fearsome. You only get energy like that when love is at its fiercest, from both of you. Love like that has to be reciprocated to project that intensely.”

Things like auras and astrology and all that have always seemed like a bunch of mumbo-jumbo bullshit to Suki, but…Ty Lee makes it sound real, and Suki almost feels embarrassed by whatever this invisible energy is that she’s apparently putting out. Is she really that pathetically obvious?

“It’s okay,” Ty Lee tells her, like she just read that particular thought. She taps the side of her head with a wink. “Not everyone’s tuned in to this kind of stuff. Your vulnerability’s safe with me. I won’t tell anyone.”

Suki breathes out a grateful laugh. Her eyes catch on Ty Lee’s hand, and she cocks her head. “You’re not wearing a ring,” she says.

Ty Lee blinks at her curiously.

“Azula told me, back when we were…getting to know each other…that you were engaged,” Suki clarifies. “And you’re…you’re not wearing a ring.”

“Oh,” Ty Lee says, and looks down at her hand thoughtfully, as if seeing it for the first time. “Well, the thing about Azula is that, she’s wrong about a lot of things, but when it comes to protecting people she cares about…she’s usually right. It’s just that her methods are sort of wrong. Chan and I didn’t last long, like she predicted. So I’m taking some time to myself. You know. Trying to live my best life without someone else. It’s been a new experience, actually. I think I like it.”

“I’m glad,” Suki says, and means it. Auras and whatever aside, she likes Ty Lee, has this powerful need for her to exist in a way befitting of the sunshine she seems to project. “I’m also…glad you know Azula cares about you,” she adds a little awkwardly, thinking back to the sometimes dismissive way Azula had spoken about Ty Lee in the very beginning.

Ty Lee smiles. “Of course I do,” she says. “I’m not stupid, I know she denies it to everyone else, and it would hurt sometimes when we were younger, and it…I mean it’s one of the main reasons we’ve mostly fallen out as friends these days, it’s just not something I’m willing to put up with anymore, but…she was trying to protect me, I know that. That’s kind of the point. Safety lies in solitude, she said that to me one time. Distance is the only way she knows how to love, and destruction is the best form of self-defense. She’s really not as complicated as she thinks she is, not once you get to know her. _You’ve_ figured that out, haven’t you?”

Suki nods, closing her hands tightly over her coffee, gaze dropping.

“Yeah. It’s written all over you, the way you know her. Anyway. I’m really sorry, Suki, but I don’t know where she is,” Ty Lee tells her again. “But I can think of a couple potentials, places she used to go when she needed to be alone. I can’t guarantee she’ll be there, but…it might help?”

“It can’t hurt.”

Ty Lee texts her a handful of addresses, and hugs her tight before they part ways. Suki hugs back, thinks Ty Lee might be the best hugger she’s ever met, better than Aang, and that’s saying something.

“Don’t let her push you away,” Ty Lee tells her. “Red auras like hers will always push. Orange and yellow like yours can weather a lot, though. You’re just as strong as she is. You love each other too much to let go.”

She gives her one more squeeze, then steps away.

Suki feels like she should say something in response to that, something to let Ty Lee know she just helped her more than she could possibly say, that she deserves the best, that she’s happy for her.

“Your aura seems…” she trails off, has no idea what auras are supposed to do. “…Seems good,” she finishes awkwardly.

Ty Lee grins at her, and it’s radiant. “Never been pinker,” she says.

*

The first three addresses Ty Lee gave her are a bust. The fourth, Suki almost thinks is a bust as well—a room above a bar near midtown overlooking the river. No one answers when she knocks, and she returns to the street, frustrated and exhausted, having spent the better part of the day running all over Republic City in search of her.

She pauses, however, as she catches sight of a metallic flash of red out of the corner of her eye. She peers across the street, breath catching as she sees the red Kawasaki parked in the garage across from the bar, half-hidden in shadow. She looks back up at the window to the room she just knocked on, and sees something move behind the curtain.

_Fucking Azula._

Suki marches right back up the stairs and bangs on the door.

“Azula, I know you’re in there,” she calls.

Nothing.

She bangs on the door again.

“Azula, please open up.”

Nothing again. Suki lets out a harsh exhale.

“Azula if you don’t let me in, I’m going to slash the tires of your motorcycle.”

She waits for a moment, then watches a shadow move behind the door, hears the click of the lock sliding back.

She holds her breath as the door is pulled open a crack, and Azula’s face slips into view, amber eyes searching her.

“You wouldn’t dare,” she says, and it’s the best sound Suki has heard in a long time, her favorite sound.

“Try me,” she replies, heart pounding.

Azula hesitates, looking her over almost defensively, then pulls the door the rest of the way open, stepping aside to let Suki in.

The room is much larger than Suki was able to tell from the outside. Spacious, beautifully furnished, art splashed across the walls, illuminated by the fall of sunlight coming in from sky lights slanting from above. East-facing floor-to-ceiling windows are covered with thin curtains for privacy, a bed partitioned off from the rest of the room. Much like Zuko’s house, there are a handful of decorative weapons on display. Everything in its place.

As far as hideouts go…it’s very Azula.

“You weren’t supposed to find me,” Azula tells her, closing the door behind them. She shifts her weight, movements stiff, still obviously recovering.

“You’re not as mysterious as you think you are,” Suki says. At Azula’s suspicious look, Suki softens and adds, “I met with Ty Lee. She pointed me in the right direction. Or…a couple right directions. And taught me about auras. I think. Also Zuko’s motorcycle is…right there.”

“It’s not Zuko’s, it’s mine.”

“It’s Zuko’s. You just stole it.”

“Right, like I said, it’s mine.”

And Suki _thinks_ there might be some small spark of humor there, but it isn’t as strong as she wants it to be. Azula is more guarded than she’s seen in a long time, and what had grown so easy between them now seems…damaged.

“Why are you here?” Suki asks as lightly as she can, settling back against the black granite counter. Everything feels off, and wrong, not what she was hoping for at all.

_Distance. Distance is the only way she knows how to love._

Azula lifts an eyebrow. “I am _far_ too sober to be getting that philosophical at three o’clock on a Wednesday afternoon,” she says.

“You know what I mean, Azula.” Suki shrugs her shoulders up tight, bracing herself because there’s something about Azula right now, an energy coming off her like a cornered animal, ready to flee, or fight to keep from getting trapped. “Why did you run?”

Azula holds her gaze. “I didn’t run. I took the motorcycle that was once my brother’s and is currently mine, and went to a place that’s better for all of us.”

Suki forces herself to break eye contact, and looks around the room like she’s surveying it, trying so hard to keep things light, it hurts. “I guess the sky lights are alright, but I’m not sure I’d call this place better for _all_ of us,” she says. She nods at an ocean-themed painting on the south wall. “Sokka in particular would take issue with that. He hates seahorses.”

“No one hates—“ Azula trails off, eyes narrowed. “You’re trying to be funny.”

Suki offers a small smile. “Toph says I’m bad at making jokes,” she says. “But I do try sometimes. How’d I do?”

“Abysmally,” Azula informs her.

“I promise I won’t make another one if you tell me why you ran.”

Azula tilts her head, chin angled to the side, the sharp edge of her jaw knife-like, almost a defensive weapon. “I have a better question for you,” she says, “why did you come here?”

“Because I love you, Azula, please don’t pretend you don’t know that,” Suki answers without hesitation.

A muscle in Azula’s jaw twitches, and she drops her gaze to the floor, crossing her arms protectively over herself like that hurt. It’s such a distinctly not-Azula behavior, Suki’s resolve falters for a moment. She takes a deep breath and strides over to Azula, taking her hand, pulling it away from its defensive position and looping it around her waist. Azula allows it, but doesn’t hold her the way she wants, remains stiff and wary. Suki takes her chin in her hand, guiding her face up so she’s forced to look at her.

Azula’s eyes are lacking their typical spark, their typical fire, their typical intensity. She looks…defeated.

Suki finds herself hating that look, would do anything to make it go away, and she tugs her down to her mouth, kissing her, more punishment than affection at first. Her frustration melts away momentarily on contact, and she presses in as close as possible. She’s been wanting to feel Azula in her arms for what feels like forever, was sure so many times that she’d lost her, but this…she could do this forever, just affirming again and again that she’s alive, that she’s hers…

She pulls back slowly, heart sinking. There’s an emptiness to the way Azula kissed back that feels like an ending, hands dropping away from her, and Suki feels unsteady, a horrible sadness growing inside her.

“Please don’t do this,” she whispers, realizing far too late that Azula has spent the last several days methodically rebuilding the walls Suki has watched her dismantle brick by brick for months now.

“I think you should go,” Azula says, brushing past her toward the counter—toward the collection of spirits displayed against the wall, like she can’t deal with Suki while she’s sober.

Suki watches helplessly. “Azula, please don’t do this,” she says again, desperation rising in her throat. “Don’t push me away.”

“What did you expect, Suki?” Azula asks, stopping just short of her destination, turning on her. “I mean honestly, after everything that’s happened, what did you expect?”

“I didn’t expect you to be a coward,” Suki snaps. “I expected at the very least that if you didn’t want to be with me anymore, you’d tell me to my face and not just vanish off the face of the Earth without a word.”

“Fine, I’ll tell you now—I don’t want to be with you anymore,” Azula says. “We’re better off without each other.”

Suki barks out an incredulous laugh. “How the _fuck_ are we better off without each other?” she demands.

“Is that a serious question?” Azula asks, eyebrows raised in a cruel arch. “Since the very first moment I met you, eight fucking years ago, all I’ve done is take from you, and hurt you. Fuck’s sake, Suki, look what happened to you because of me!”

“You didn’t do this to me, Zhao did. _You_ protected me.”

“And I was terrified the entire fucking time!” Azula exclaims. And there _is_ fear there in her eyes, something Suki has never seen before, not to this degree. “I don’t like feeling like that, I don’t like that _you_ felt like that, I don’t…I don’t want to spend the rest of my life being…afraid. Since the second I saw that you’d been taken, that’s _all_ I’ve felt is afraid.” She sinks down onto the edge of the couch, looking shaken, like that took a lot out of her. “All I feel when I think about you now is fear, and if you want to call that love, you can, they’re the same thing, but I just can’t…I can’t handle that feeling. No matter what you want to call it.”

Suki looks her over for a long time. Small. Like when she was in the hospital. She looks so small, and so hurt, Suki can almost see her grasping at bricks, trying to build them up as quickly as possible, keeping her away, keeping everyone away.

“They’re not the same thing,” Suki says finally. “Fear and love, they’re not the same.”

“Of course they are, Suki,” Azula breathes. “I told you before…love is just fear of loss. You’re the one who came barreling into a burning building because you were afraid of losing me, it’s the reason you’re here right now. It’s why I went on a fucking rampage through the city to find you when you were taken. Fear seems like a pretty fundamental part of loving someone.”

“You really expect me to believe that fear is the _only_ thing you feel?” Suki demands, anger sparking to life alongside her desperation. “Because it sure as hell isn’t the only thing _I_ feel. You’re right about part of it—I was afraid of being without you…but I also adored every second I was _with_ you. You’re acting like love only exists in absence, like it’s only real when you’re missing someone, but it’s more than that, Azula, it’s about treasuring someone when they’re right there in front of you! You’ve got this idea of separation in your head, and it’s just…that’s not all there is.” She lifts her shoulders up helplessly. “I’m right here.”

“For now you are, but if—“

“Azula, stop,” Suki interrupts, voice sharp with agitation. “Please just…stop.”

She exhales slowly, trying to center herself, trying to reach for the answer, trying desperately to come up with whatever it will take to stop Azula from building those walls up as high as they once were, too high for Suki to climb. She’s rebuilt them so quickly— _so_ quickly, like it’s second nature to her—but if Suki can just remember how that first brick was taken down originally, the one that started it all…it was just one, followed by the next, followed by the rest…

Suki knows she managed to loosen a couple bricks here and there along the way since first meeting her, but she thinks suddenly that it was when she brought Azula back to her apartment the first time, when Azula was spiraling after what happened at the Boiling Rock, when Azula wanted to know—was brave enough to _try_ to know—what she really did to Suki the first night they met at Ba Sing Se. She was there in Suki’s apartment, and Suki had told her she was wrong. As simple as that. Grabbed hold of some crucial brick of insecurity in the wall of pride she’d built, and tugged it just a little out of place. Azula was on Suki’s couch, and saying those words that made Suki the angriest—how she _knew better._ Knew better than to open up, to become soft, or gentle, or kind…god forbid she actually think herself capable of love. And what did Suki do in response?

Suki looks at Azula now, sees the walls she’s scrambled to build, sees the bricks, almost the same as they were before, but a little more fragile now. Different in weight and density, little fissures put there, ones Suki put there, and ones Azula put there herself.

No, not fissures, she thinks, the longer she looks at Azula, sees the defensive way she holds herself. These walls are weaker, poorly put together, scrambled together out of an instinct for survival, not a real belief. Azula’s wrong, and she knows she’s wrong. That one fatal brick that Suki removed months ago, challenging her to explain exactly what it was that she knew so much better than the rest of them. There aren’t just fissures in the wall—that fatal brick from before is missing completely, even still.

So what does Suki do? The same fucking thing she did that night—she makes her way over to the couch, straddles Azula, and sinks down onto her lap.

Azula blinks in surprise. “What are you…?”

“I’m not as eloquent as you, and I’m not as good at the evasive maneuvers and powers of persuasion as you are,” Suki tells her. “I’m not going to come up with the right words to convince you, so I’m going to sit on you until you admit that you were wrong for leaving, and that you’re in love with me, and that you’ll go on a bunch of awkward dates with me, and be my girlfriend, and all that entails.”

“You can’t just…” Azula huffs, and Suki isn’t sure if there might be something fringing on an incredulous laugh in there, or if she just pressed too close against where she was shot and is currently in a lot of pain. “You can’t keep winning arguments by sitting on me.”

“Watch me. It worked last time, it’s going to work this time, too.”

Azula gazes up at her and that fear from earlier has lessened just the slightest bit—wary still, but pushed off balance by an exasperated note of fondness.

“I can always just push you off,” she says.

“Try it and I will poke you in the stomach,” Suki tells her. “I do not care that you just had a bullet in you.”

“Two bullets,” Azula corrects. “Another sort of nasty side effect of being in love with you.”

Suki slides her hands up Azula’s shoulders, clasping them behind her neck, gazes into those fierce, beautiful, fragile eyes. “So you admit you’re in love with me,” she says.

This time the huff of air that comes from Azula seems very much like a poorly-contained laugh, and Suki feels Azula’s hands land carefully at her hips. _So_ carefully. Like she doesn’t trust that it’s okay, is maybe afraid that touching her will cause her world to shatter.

She’s quiet for a time, wary and thoughtful, then her hand slips under the hem of Suki’s shirt, carefully pushing it up just enough to expose the brands going up her side. Suki leans back to give her better access, lets her take in the sight of them, keeps her breath even as Azula grazes her fingers gently over the marks, like she’s silently apologizing for each one. She lingers on the one that was once hers, touches it gingerly like it’s something precious, even as destroyed as it is now.

Finally, she lifts her head back up to look at Suki, expression open and earnest. “I don’t want you to get hurt because of me ever again,” she says.

Suki tucks her hair behind her ear, traces the edge of her jaw, loves her too much to put words to. “Well you’re going to have to get over that,” she tells her. “You and I have a tendency to hurt each other…during sex in particular…also I know I’ve elbowed you at least a couple times when we were sleeping…then there was the time you stepped on my foot when we were on Zuko’s community service kick…”

Azula’s lips tug at the corner into a guarded smile. “You know what I mean,” she admonishes.

“I do,” Suki says. She shifts her weight. “I do, and I’m still not scared. Are you?”

Azula looks at her closely, searching. She exhales slowly, and nods, like she’s confessing something she’s tried to deny her whole life. Scared. Capable of being scared.

Suki cradles her face, thumb brushing over her cheekbone. “Okay,” she murmurs. “That’s okay. I’ll keep you safe.” She presses her forehead against Azula’s teasingly. “If you’ll just let me do my job for once, I’ll keep you safe.”

Azula isn’t quite able to contain a smile, and Suki feels her arms encircle her waist, pulling her closer, nuzzling and pressing a soft kiss to her neck before resting her head against her chest, simply holding her. Suki holds her back, kisses the top of her head, fingers running soothingly through her hair, feels the way those bricks are beginning to falter, some to crumble away completely, leaving a bared and defenseless Azula beneath. She holds her closer still, wordlessly letting her know that walls or no walls, she _is_ safe, she’ll _always_ be safe, Suki will keep her safe no matter what. Azula seems to get the message, even without words, body growing soft under hers. Suki smiles, pressing another kiss to her head.

“I told you I’d win our argument if I sat on you,” she says after a moment.

Azula laughs, an actual laugh this time, causing her shoulders to shake, breath warm against Suki’s skin—then she twists suddenly, expertly pushing Suki down against the cushions.

Well. _Almost_ expertly. She hisses as she bends over Suki, hand going to her side in pain.

“You okay?” Suki asks, hand going to Azula’s side as well.

“Fantastic,” Azula winces. “Just…trying to get the last word in.”

Suki laughs. “Mhm. And how’d that go for you?”

There’s a twinkle in Azula’s eye, one very particular to her, a combination of danger, and teasing, and fondness, that sends Suki’s heart pounding. “You have no idea what you’re in for as soon as I can move without feeling like my stomach’s going to tear itself open,” she says.

Suki smiles up at her, heart overflowing. “Sounds promising.”


	26. Chapter 26

In the two months that follow Suki wrangling a love confession out of her by sitting on her while she was injured and in a weakened state, Azula’s life begins to change rather rapidly. It’s one hell of a learning curve, each day bringing a host of new discoveries, not all of them particularly pleasant.

Highlights include:

-There is something called _rent_ that she is obligated to pay in order to continue living in the room above the bar. Azula always assumed _rent_ was a joke made for TV, and was unaware this was an actual thing that would be expected of her

-In order to pay _rent_ she has to get a _job._ As the information about the offshore Sozin accounts was destroyed in the fire at the safe house, neither she, nor Zuko, nor June (who is extremely put out, but at least understood this would be a possibility) have access to the money tucked away in there, which means it’s just…out there. Somewhere. Azula thinks it might behoove her to someday put a concentrated effort into finding it, but in the meantime…she has to find a _job_

-Stealing money from corrupt politicians she knows _for a fact_ have gotten their hands on said money through ties with one Clan or another—meaning it’s not legal and should therefore naturally be up for grabs—is apparently not a job

Once she has returned the aforementioned money to its supposed “rightful” place—although Azula really thinks that term is up for debate—Zuko gets her a job at Avatar Security. Right off the bat, she learns two more things, neither of which she likes at all:

-The job involves neither motorcycles nor weaponry

-The job involves answering phones and filing things

Now to be clear, it also involves using her as a “valuable resource” in further operations Avatar Security runs keeping victims of various mob bosses and lower initiate thugs safe. This all sounds important on paper, but in practice, it really means a lot of talking to people and looking at papers and watching the news and making phone calls which is abjectly horrifying.

On the upside, it is a _job_ with _benefits_ and _health insurance_ which are things that allow her to pay _rent_ and pay off _medical bills_ of which there are _several_ after being shot.

It also doesn’t hurt that Suki works there too, and in between doing a much more interesting job than Azula, has introduced her to the covert pleasures of office sex. Unfortunately, being caught in the act of office sex by Aang and Katara due to the not-so-quiet noises coming from Suki’s mouth is apparently a very bad thing and leads to a Serious Discussion with Zuko, Aang, and something called HR.

Perhaps more of note is the following conversation she is forced to endure with the core founders of Avatar Security:

“Welcome to your first shovel talk,” Sokka says to her. It’s 4:58 and Azula should be headed home in a couple minutes as per the 9-5 job she has agreed to, but Sokka has ambushed her out of nowhere and yanked her into one of the smaller conference rooms where Zuko, Aang, Katara, and Toph are seated around a round table waiting for them.

He guides Azula into one of the seats, and takes up the chair directly opposite her so he can glare at her more efficiently.

“I’m sorry, a _what_ talk?” Azula asks, looking curiously and a little irritatedly from each agent to the next.

“Shovel,” Sokka repeats. “It’s where we tell you how brutally we will murder you and how deep we will bury you if you break Suki’s heart.”

“I think what Sokka is _trying_ to say,” Zuko puts in more diplomatically, “is that we’re trying to find out your intentions with Suki.”

Azula arches an eyebrow at him. “Zuzu, my intentions with Suki would make you blush so hard your entire body might catch on fire. In the interest of not incinerating you, I think you’re better off not knowing.”

“How ‘bout you give us the G-rated version,” Aang suggests.

“I’m afraid there’s nothing particularly G-rated about my relationship with Suki.”

“Okay, but you just used the word ‘relationship’,” Katara points out. “So this is about more than just…things that will make Zuko blush. Is it fair to say that you love her?”

“Cherish her?” Aang asks.

“And will protect her from all harm?” Zuko adds.

Azula looks disbelievingly between all of them. “What is this, the Suki Defense Squad?” she asks.

“Yes,” they all answer in unison—except for Toph, who says, “Eh, I figure she can probably handle herself, I’m just here for a laugh.”

“We’re here to make sure you treat Suki like a queen,” Sokka corrects warningly. “Suki is the best girl in the whole world, and she should be treated as such.”

“Hang on—what d’you mean Suki’s the best girl in the world?” Katara interjects, like this point was not previously discussed. “What exactly does that make Toph and me?”

“You’re not a _girl,_ you’re my _sister,”_ Sokka says, rolling his eyes.

“What about _Toph?”_

_“Toph_ transcends the gender constrictions of ‘best girl in the world’ to ‘best human being in the universe’,” Toph says of herself, casually lacing her fingers behind her head and resting her feet up on the tabletop, toeing off her shoes. “Obviously.”

“I feel like we’re getting off-topic here,” Aang says, redirecting the conversation. All eyes return to Azula, who actually straightens in mild wariness. “We just wanna know that you’re gonna be good to Suki.”

Azula considers making a somewhat salacious insinuation about just _how good_ she is to Suki as evidenced by what Aang and Katara walked in on the day before, but the wall of earnestness directed at her right now makes her rethink that particular course of action. Instead, she makes her first clumsy attempt at being earnest with _them_.

“I’d do anything for Suki,” she tells them. “She’s the most important thing in the world to me.”

They all seem to melt a little at this, except for Sokka who grumbles, “I don’t love your use of the word _thing.”_

“I meant like an all-encompassing—that she’s more important than anything, not just other people, but all of it, everything there’s ever—been—“ Azula huffs in frustration, is mortified by the fact that she thinks her face is turning red. “Listen, I don’t need to defend myself to all of you, _you_ in particular, Boomerang Boy, why don’t we talk about _your_ intentions with my _brother,_ hm?”

All eyes now turn to Sokka, who sputters in surprise.

“My _intentions_ with _Zuko_ are deep devotion, everlasting commitment, insanely hot sex, and high fucking romance,” he snaps, and Zuko sinks his forehead into his hands in embarrassment.

“Well, there you go, that’s me and Suki!” Azula fires back.

The room goes quiet. Aang and Katara are looking at her with easily the soppiest expressions Azula has ever had the misfortune of seeing, while Zuko, peeking up from his hand, looks… _proud…_ of her, Toph picks some lint off her socks, and Sokka looks begrudgingly mollified.

“Well good,” Katara says brightly, standing and beginning to exit the room like this was just a very casual get-together.

“That’s all we wanted to know,” Aang agrees, joining her.

“Think you’ve gotten our official collective blessing,” Zuko adds, squeezing her shoulder affectionately as he passes her, which she shrugs off. He flicks Sokka’s wolftail a little admonishingly as he passes by him.

“Um hello? You’re all missing the best part of the shovel talk?” Toph interrupts incredulously. “Where are all the graphic threats of bodily harm if she hurts Suki? I got a whole list prepared!”

“I’m sure she can use her imagination,” Katara says, handing Toph her cane. “Come on.”

“This is some bullshit,” Toph grumbles, but gets reluctantly to her feet, following the rest of them out the door and leaving her shoes on the table. “No violence, and ten minutes of my life I’ll never get back…”

Finally it’s just Azula and Sokka left in the room. He has his arms crossed and is still looking at her with judgy eyes. She returns the look.

“So is it always going to be like this between you and me?” she asks. “You acting like I’m bad for Suki, or that I’m somehow still your enemy?”

“I don’t think you’re bad for Suki, or that you're still my enemy,” Sokka replies, an uncomfortable frown tugging at his mouth. “I wouldn’t’ve helped break you out of a burning building if I did. But...I’m always gonna be protective of her. I just want you to know that.”

Azula lifts her chin uncertainly. “Well then we’re on the same side here,” she says.

“Yeah, I mean I hope so. We better be.”

Sokka…is somewhat confusing. Azula _thinks_ she likes him, and sometimes thinks _he_ thinks he likes her, too. She gets the feeling it’s always going to be a little complicated though, especially with both of them trying to out-protective each other when it comes to Suki. And Zuko, for that matter.

“Anyway,” Sokka says, finally getting to his feet and dusting off his hands. He circles around and gives her a clap on the shoulder. “Thanks for coming to my shovel talk.”

*

Three months into Azula’s new life, Zuko betrays her.

And just when she was beginning to trust him.

Azula should have expected this all along.

“Would you stop being so dramatic?” Suki laughs. She’s lying on her stomach on Azula’s bed, half-dressed, propped up on her elbows, eyes bright with humor. “It’s not _that_ bad.”

Azula turns away from the full-length mirror and gestures at the zig-zagging ruffles that line the horrendous pink and orange dress Zuko has assigned her to wear at his and Sokka’s wedding.

“Easy for you to say, Suki,” she snaps. “You’re Sokka’s best man, you get to wear the little sexy tailored suit. And I’m…” she glances back at her reflection with a scowl, “Zuko’s floofy bridesmaid. Not even his maid of honor.”

“He’s been friends with Toph for a long time,” Suki says, doing a horrible job stifling her giggles. “Of course he chose her, the two of you haven’t even been in the same orbit for more than a few months.”

“Well, then I could be _Sokka’s_ maid of honor, he has _far_ better taste in dresses.”

“Azula, you’ve got kind of a long road ahead of you before Sokka would choose you as his maid of honor. Also…he’s basically obligated to choose Katara, she pretty much bullied him into it.”

“I could be _Zuko’s_ best man, then.”

“That’s Aang’s job.”

“Well then I should be able to preside,” Azula grumbles. “It takes all of, what, an hour to get ordained online? And at least I’d get to wear something more dignified.”

“Babe, you’re way too grouchy to preside over something like a wedding,” Suki laughs, pushing herself up to her knees and gesturing for Azula to come join her.

Azula obeys with a petulant groan, dragging her feet, pretending to ignore the way Suki's little use of the word _babe_ tugs at her. Lately, Suki has taken to calling her a variety of pet names, which is apparently her means of displaying a new level of comfort in their relationship. Which…is a little endearing. And maybe a little bit sexy. Azula always makes a show of rolling her eyes at them, but she’ll admit she kind of loves it when she’s fucking her and Suki gets close and utters a breathless _yes, baby, just like that,_ or _please baby, don’t stop._ It’s Suki’s newest and most irritatingly effective tactic at getting Azula to give in to her every whim.

Suki loops her arms over Azula’s shoulders as she finally reaches the edge of the bed, grinning at her.

“Think of it this way,” she says, curling a lock of Azula’s hair absently around her finger. “You’re the hot bridesmaid the best man gets to fuck post wedding ceremony.”

Azula cocks an eyebrow. “Yeah we’ll see who will be fucking who,” she purrs dangerously, hands going to Suki’s hips, ready to demonstrate _exactly_ how things will be going when the day comes.

To her surprise, Suki snorts out a laugh. “I’m sorry,” she giggles, covering her mouth. “I’m sorry, it’s just so hard to take you seriously in all those ruffles.”

Azula takes a step back out of her hold. “You said it wasn’t that bad!” she exclaims indignantly.

“I know, I know, babe,” Suki laughs again, reaching out and taking her wrists, pulling her back in.“I lied.”

Before Azula can protest, Suki’s kissing her, drawing her in, smiling into each kiss, which is a _little bit_ distracting.

But only a _little bit._

Azula pulls away from her and begins stripping herself out of the abomination Zuko has decided to call a dress. Suki reaches for her again, apparently thinking this disrobing is for _her,_ but Azula swerves away, snatching up her phone from the nightstand, and making her way for the matchbox she keeps in the silverware drawer.

“What are you doing?” Suki asks.

“Sending a video of me burning this dress to Zuko so he knows my thoughts on the matter.”

“Azula you can’t keep setting things on fire, we’ve talked about this. Your landlord has already issued three warnings now.”

“Suki, there are _ruffles!”_

Suki slips off the bed and strides quickly across the floor, taking the matchbox from her and holding it reprimandingly out of her reach. “Use your words, Azula,” she says.

Azula huffs in frustration, then drops the dress and pulls up Zuko’s name on her phone and quickly taps out:

_It’s fucking hideous, you ass_

and hits send.

She holds it up for Suki to see. “Happy now?” she asks.

Suki gives her a disapproving frown, takes the phone from her, and sends a follow-up heart emoji.

“What did you do _that_ for?” Azula demands in horror, snatching the phone back, wondering frantically if there’s a way to reach into her phone and grab that heart emoji back before it reaches Zuko.

But Suki takes hold of her wrists again, tugging her back toward the bed. “You need to learn to be _nice,”_ she says teasingly.

“I’m always nice.”

“You’re always nice to _me_. You need to learn to be nice to your brother.”

“I’m sorry, did you _see_ the dress he’s forcing me to wear?”

“I did,” Suki confirms, pulling her arms around her waist as they reach the edge of the bed. “And it’s hideous.” She angles her head to press her mouth against Azula’s ear. “But you are so fucking sexy, I think you’ll make it work,” she murmurs. “Plus it’ll just make me want to get you out of it all the faster.”

Azula isn’t sure that’s right, but given the way Suki is currently kissing her neck and has dropped the phone on the mattress so she can undo the clasp of her bra, it’s a little hard to come up with anything particularly snarky or clever to say in response.

She lets Suki pull her down on top of her on the mattress, follows her as she inches back so they have more room.

Suki begins to reach for the nightstand where the collar is kept.

“Do you want it?” she asks.

Azula shakes her head. “Not today.”

She doesn’t have Suki wear the collar as often anymore. Which is to say, alright, she does _a lot_ of the time—Suki looks exceedingly sexy in it, and Azula loves the visual of just how utterly Suki belongs to her. But she also…doesn’t really need evidence of it anymore. No longer possession, just…belonging. The way she belongs to Suki, the way they belong to each other. Suki makes that feeling perfectly clear without toys or accoutrements of any kind, somehow manages to convey it with simple gestures, or touch, or just the act of being near. Azula does her best to do the same—she’s not as good at it, but she’s trying.

Now, she spreads Suki’s legs, gaze sweeping over the body she’s gotten to know so well, so much better than any other. She dips down, softly kissing each brand going up her side.

It’s ritual at this point, any time she has Suki like this, open and bared beneath her, she begins by kissing those brands. Suki hated them for a long time in the immediate aftermath of her abduction—still does, she’s sure—but Azula has made a point of telling her, fiercely, over and over, that not a single one of them is a sign of Zhao claiming her, or taking any power away from her. They’re evidence, she’s told her again and again, of survival, of strength, of bravery, and she thinks that Suki believes her a little bit more each time she’s said it.

Either way, Azula always starts like this. Has to. Has to affirm how much she loves her, has to affirm that she’ll never let anyone take anything away from her, has to affirm how beautiful she is, how strong she is, how gentle she is, how indomitable a spirit she has…

…before promptly fucking her just this side of senseless.

The dichotomy of reverence and degradation in the way Azula treats her during sex is something Suki actually finds funny, much to Azula’s surprise. Suki laughs often, she’s playful, teases her for the fun of it—all things Azula was unaware could be such a casual part of fucking someone. Maybe that’s the _love_ part of things. It softens her—and, sometimes, makes her rougher, it’s true. Occasionally more emotional.

She’s allowed Suki to go down on her several times now, and has pushed her down and used her to get herself off more than that. She loves it, but it’s still controlled, takes a lot out of her, makes her feel vulnerable, exhausts her on more than just a physical level. She’s always grateful for the way Suki holds her afterward, soothing her down, making her feel slightly more adventurous the next time, a little more open to losing control.

Apparently Suki’s endless curiosity is catching.

As for right now…

Azula has reached the apex of her thighs, nosing at her through her quickly-dampening underwear. She takes the waistband between her teeth, pulling back a little and then letting go so that it snaps back down against Suki’s skin. Suki gives a little yelp of surprise, then laughs and swats blindly at Azula.

“Don’t tease,” she admonishes.

So of course Azula _continues_ to tease _,_ nips at the skin above the waistband of her underwear, nibbles up the inside of her hips, and across her abdomen where she knows Suki is most ticklish, teasing her with her mouth and her breath as she uses her fingers to stroke at her center through her underwear. Suki squirms under her, the overwhelming mix of sensations keeping her caught somewhere between giggling from being tickled, and moaning from pleasure. Pleasure soon takes over though, and Azula refocuses her attention, sliding Suki’s underwear down and tugging it off so she can press her open mouth against Suki’s bared sex, dragging the flat of her tongue through those slick folds and circling her clit for just a moment before dipping back down and delving her tongue deep inside her.

Suki’s hips jerk under her and she keens, legs wrapping tight, and Azula breathes out a laugh, holding her down. That breath makes Suki arch again, so Azula goes back to running her tongue through her folds, fingers coming up to circle her clit. She’s hot and wet and it doesn’t take long before Azula has her mewling and begging just the way she likes her.

She lifts her head a little in surprise at the sound of her phone vibrating on the mattress beside Suki, continues to move her fingers because Suki is so deliciously close, pitifully desperate sounds falling from her lips, hips beginning to judder under her. Azula lifts an eyebrow curiously at Sokka’s name brightening the screen of her phone. She reaches for it, even as Suki gives a protesting cry at the loss of the heat from her mouth.

“Azula I swear to god if you stop I’m breaking up with you,” she gasps in one frantic breath, clamping her hand down on Azula’s wrist to make sure she doesn’t stop what she’s doing with her fingers.

Azula drops her head against her soft thigh, laughing, because she’s fucking _cute_ when she’s this desperate.

“I won’t stop,” she promises, fingers continuing their work as she picks up the phone and answers into it, “Dear Sokka. What can I do for you?”

Suki inhales sharply in surprise above her, head whipping up to lock eyes with her in alarm, apparently not having realized she was actually going to answer the phone, or who was on the other end of the line.

_“Is Suki there?”_ Sokka asks. _“She’s not picking up her phone.”_

“Suki’s indisposed at the moment,” Azula informs him smoothly, slowing the motion of her fingers against Suki’s sex to a tortuous pace, keeping her hanging. Suki, clearly regretting her earlier command not to stop tries urgently to swat her away, but when Azula slips her fingers inside the slick heat of her, Suki lets out a choked-off moan, eyes rolling back in her head as she arches back against the bed. Azula barely keeps herself from giving a satisfied hum at the reaction.

_“Well will you tell her to call me when she has the chance? There’s been some fuck-up with the flowers she ordered for the wedding and I’m currently wading through like a million panda lilies. Also I’m starting to think I’m allergic to panda lilies. I’ve got all these red spots going up my arms, I look like a fucking leopard…”_

“I’ll let her know,” Azula assures him, slowly twisting her fingers so that Suki gives a sharp gasp, biting down hard on her own forearm to keep herself quiet. “I’m sure she’ll be happy to help just as soon as she has her wits about her.”

_“What d’you mean once she has her wits about—“_

“Goodnight, Sokka,” Azula says, hanging up and tossing the phone to the side.

As soon as the phone is no longer a threat, Suki releases her arm from her mouth, letting loose the desperate moans she’s been trying so hard to contain. Azula picks up her pace again, mouth returning to her center, working her up relentlessly with her tongue and finally allowing her to plummet over the edge. She hears a _thump_ as Suki smacks the palm of her hand against the headboard as she comes, other hand grasping at the sheets as her hips push up frantically into Azula’s mouth. Azula follows her movements, licking into her, unable to get enough until Suki’s movements finally begin to quiet and she gives out a long groan.

Azula pushes herself up on her knees as Suki calms down, watching her with a smirk as she catches her breath, wiping her mouth with her forearm.

“Can’t believe you did that,” Suki breathes, eyes finally focusing up at her, apparently trying to scold her, but missing by several steps.

“Did what?” Azula asks innocently.

“Answered the phone while I was…I mean what if he _heard…”_

“He didn’t, you were very good,” Azula tells her, beginning to crawl forward over her.

“And you were very evil,” Suki returns, voice still raspy. She lifts her leg, placing her foot on Azula’s chest to stop her approach. “No. I’m mad at you now.”

Which is awfully precious of her, but also completely ineffective, because Azula turns her head, taking hold of Suki’s calf and starting to kiss her way from ankle to thigh. Suki gives a conflicted little moan-laugh that sends arousal curling deep into Azula’s core, and she finally drops down, kissing Suki deeply, coaxing another long, drawn-out moan from her.

“You like it when I’m evil,” she teases once she separates from her.

“Yeah, we’ll see just how evil you are dressed up in all those ruffles in front of a congregation of a couple hundred of Zuko and Sokka’s close personal friends,” Suki taunts.

Azula pauses at that. “A couple _hundred?”_ she asks carefully.

“Mhm. And of course there will be the photographers.”

Azula sits back on her heels. _“Photographers?”_

“That’s right.” Suki looks entirely too smug at this revelation. “To immortalize your eternal floofiness.”

Azula stares at her for a moment, then gets off the bed. “Right, that’s it, I’m setting that fucking dress on fire.”

Suki laughs and grabs her hand, wrestling her back down, and it—whatever—she’s good at distractions, alright, and Azula sort of forgets about the dress until the following morning, when it’s far too late to do anything about it.

*

The ceremony itself is…well, it’s kind of lovely, is the thing. Azula thinks the sniffling and dabbing of eyes from much of the audience is a bit over the top, but even _she_ feels her heart give something of a small skip when Sokka begins pouring his heart out to Zuko in his vows. Somehow she had expected his vows would be glib and punctuated by his typical off-color humor. Instead he’s open and earnest and surprisingly eloquent—even _poetic_ when he speaks to Zuko.

Azula finds her gaze trailing over to Suki across the altar at some of his words, thinks she looks maybe _particularly_ beautiful today, the bright festiveness of the occasion heightening what’s already so stunning about her. And yes, maybe a couple of Sokka’s sentiments about devotion and everlasting love resonate all the more when Suki happens to glance back at her with a small, somewhat devious smile.

Zuko’s voice is awkward and shaky as he says his vows. For someone who was so good at lighting a fire under his agents when they were on a mission to rescue Suki, he’s now tripping over the grand majority of his words, and keeps angling his head to get his shaggy hair out of his eyes. He needs a haircut, why the hell didn’t anyone tell him he needed a haircut before the wedding?

Still, the whole thing manages to be very beautiful and almost elegantly traditional.

That is, until the grooms are finally pronounced husband and husband, and the reception begins.

Tables are pushed aside, colored lights ignite, spinning around paper lanterns around the perimeter, music begins pumping through the speakers surrounding the open expanse of the outdoor venue, outfits are changed—Azula is _finally_ able to get out of that ruffled monstrosity and into a shimmery red and gold ensemble of her choosing, while Suki slips into a wonderfully low-cut black and green dress seemingly designed to push Azula’s self-restraint to its absolute limits.

The gathering has made the official switch into full-tilt party mode, and Azula can say with absolute certainty she has never seen this many dancing sleeveless men in one place before. Sokka has somehow found himself some leather pants and is, unsurprisingly, dancing on a table top with “Macho Man” being blasted from the speakers while drinking straight from a bottle of champagne. What _is_ surprising is when Sokka gestures for Zuko, and Zuko actually gets on the table with him.

Zuko has, horrifically, found some leather pants of his own, and with champagne flowing and wedding giddiness racing through his veins, he seems possessed by the spirit of some dancing dragon god, and if Azula weren’t dying of humiliation, she might realize that she’s actually laughing with delight.

He swings by next to her a couple songs in, sweaty, drunk, and beaming. Sokka, Suki, and Toph are on the dance floor, currently engaged in what seems to be a previously-choreographed stomping-flailing combination to “YMCA,” while Aang and Katara seem to be attempting to tango to it. Interesting choice.

“You’re not wearing the dress I picked out for you anymore,” Zuko observes.

“I looked like a flamingo, Zuko, of course I’m not wearing it anymore,” she replies. She looks him over in the flash of colored lights circulating the venue, wrinkling her nose at the leather pants and red vest which show, frankly, far too much of his body for her comfort level. “You look like a stripper, by the way. Guess it took a wedding to finally get that stick out of your ass.”

“Sure, had to make room for what Sokka’s gonna be doing to me tonight,” Zuko quips, grinning and making a whip-cracking motion.

She stares at him in horror. “Alright, who’s this monumental slut masquerading as my uptight big brother?” she demands, poking him and searching for some evidence that he’s been replaced with an evil lookalike.

Somehow, his grin only widens at her prodding.

“Your face will freeze like that, you know,” she warns him.

“I’m happy,” he tells her, and there’s something about the laugh in his voice that hits an unexpected chord in her. She thinks the last time she heard that very particular sound from him was when they were both very small, and the world still seemed to be a wild adventure just for the two of them. Before the Clan, before legacy, before honor, there was play, and there was that laugh in Zuko’s voice. And while Azula stands by her disgust with his current behavior and outfit, sudden emotion wells up in her, and she elbows him in the ribs to make it go away.

“What about you?” he asks, putting his hand defensively over his ribs.

She cocks her head at him, eyebrows raised.

“Are you happy?” he clarifies.

And Azula doesn’t _mean_ to let her gaze skip over to Suki on the dance floor at the word _happy_ , doesn’t _mean_ to let her heart do some kind of flippy thing at the sight of her smile, at the flash of lights dancing across her skin, bringing her to absolutely radiant life as the song changes, and the dancing becomes, if possible, even goofier to “Take On Me.”

“I suppose if you absolutely _had_ to get our father arrested, and then abduct me, hold me prisoner, incite a catastrophic upheaval in Republic City’s criminal underworld, and get me wrapped up in your ridiculous goody-two-shoes way of life…this isn’t a _horrible_ outcome,” she says.

His arm is around her suddenly, crushing her tight to his side, and he kisses the top of her head. She squirms out of his hold with a grumble, swatting his arm.

He catches her hand in his and begins pulling her toward the dance floor.

“What are you doing?” she demands in alarm.

“You’re dancing with me,” he tells her.

“I am fucking not, Zuko, you get your hands off me!”

But Zuko isn’t listening, instead pulling her with surprising strength along with him, holding her gaze and dramatically singing, _“Taaaaake onnnnn meeee…”_ along with the music as they reach the dance floor.

He’s lucky it’s his wedding, that’s all Azula has to say. Otherwise she would absolutely not be caught dead letting him twirl her around, or drinking with him, or being dragged into a circle of his dancing friends (since when did _Zuko_ develop the social skills to have _friends?)._ It’s a bit perilous being part of their crowd—Sokka has decided to show off his breakdancing skills, which are questionable, nearly kicking Katara in the nose while he’s at it, and Toph seems to have zero moral qualms about stomping on everyone’s feet when she’s dancing.

Suki drapes herself all over Azula, is frankly a _much_ better dancer than the others, draws her in, somehow manages, under the flashing lights with a bunch of absolute morons spinning around them, to make her fall just a little harder for her. Just a little.

They get through “Hot Stuff,” “Dancing Queen,” “Sexual Healing,” “We Don’t Have to Take Our Clothes Off,” and “Push It” before Azula starts to wonder if Sokka and Zuko are aware there is music that was written both before _and_ after the ‘70s and ‘80s.

As midnight draws near and “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” starts to play, Suki pulls her sneakily off to the side.

“Where are you…”

Suki shushes her with a grin and leads her through the throng of dancers and out past the thinning groups of slightly less inebriated guests. Azula follows her to the edge of the venue, where things are empty save for the sound from the speakers, no one around to see them. Suki pulls her just around the corner where the property dips into an unoccupied terrace seemingly used for storage for excess outdoor furniture.

Azula’s gaze is drawn immediately to the small mountain of fireworks, all wired and ready to go at the edge of the property. Her jaw drops. That is…a fuckton of fireworks. She squeezes Suki’s hips.

“Now what exactly have you found here?” she asks.

“I didn’t find them,” Suki tells her. “I set them up myself.”

Azula looks at her, feeling the beginnings of a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth, and tries to fix it into something more disapproving, clicking her tongue. “Last I heard, Republic City requires a permit for this kind of thing,” she says with mock sternness.

“It does.”

“Why do I have the sneaking suspicion you haven’t obtained one?”

“Because I haven’t,” Suki admits, biting her lip coyly. “You’ve been a very bad influence on me and I had Teo help me get these together as a surprise for the boys. He also said we’re going to have to run like hell once we light the fuse.” Suki withdraws a matchbox from somewhere very mysterious in her dress, holding it up teasingly. “So what do you think? Want to set one more fire?”

The pure mischief glinting in Suki’s eyes is magnetic, effortlessly drawing the smirk to full bloom across Azula’s lips. She closes her fingers around the matchbox, using it to pull Suki in close. “You really are trouble, aren’t you,” she says, one eyebrow lifted.

She starts to pluck the matchbox from Suki’s fingers, but Suki jerks it just out of her reach at the last second, taking her chin with her other hand, expression a little more stern.

“Azula,” she says. “I mean it. _One_ more fire. After that, I need you to behave.”

Azula’s smile is devilish as she swoops in to brush her lips teasingly against Suki's before tugging the matchbox free. “For you? Anything,” she says.

Together they light the fuse, hightailing it back toward the venue proper as fast as they can once it begins to spark, not stopping until the air begins to splinter with the whistling sounds of festive incendiary missiles shooting into the atmosphere. They turn as one to admire their work once they’ve rejoined the rest of the guests, all of whom are now looking up at the sky in excited wonder.

Azula wraps her arms around Suki from behind, resting her chin on her shoulder. Suki nestles into her, a perfect fit, and Azula feels a certain peace, and a certain elation, both melding into one as they sway comfortably together, and watch the sky ignite.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The End.
> 
> Thank you all for sticking with me and this lil itty bitty rare pair! Everything from your comments to your art to your kudoses(eseseses?) to your silent reader numbers ticking up all meant the world to me and I'm beyond grateful that you took the time to wade through all the angst and the smut and the romance and the occasional plot to get to the fluffy center. Goodnight, friends <3


End file.
